


Winter Refuge

by thecatinthepurplepants



Series: The Naming of a Dragon [2]
Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Anal Sex, Dragon(s) - Freeform, Eventual Smut, Intersex (Technically), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Universe, Other, Tags May Change, Tentacle Dick, Weird Dragon Junk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:29:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecatinthepurplepants/pseuds/thecatinthepurplepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William and Sky continue through The Forest on their return journey back to the world outside the trees and dense underbrush hiding untold amounts of dangers. Winter has fully set in and brings with it heavy snow and bitter cold that would require most to seek shelter anywhere they could but William is insistent that the two of them can keep going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sickness and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here's the smut no one asked for. If you haven't read the first part you're most likely going to be pretty lost in some parts so I recommend going back and reading it. Unless of course you're just here for the interspecies smut and awkward romance, that's cool too, you do you. I hope you guys were wanting them to end up together romantically, if not then just read the first part and have them remain best buddies in your mind.

The snow crunched under a large clawed foot, the sound echoing through the eerie quiet of The Forest, and the white of the snow made every shadow in the underbrush all the more dramatic in the late evening darkness. Raspy breathing, caught on sharp, cold air, turned into a harsh fit of coughing, followed by sniffling and a runny nose being blown into a handkerchief, which was just a rag that fell off of an article of clothing. The great reptile glanced away from the forest ahead to look over their shoulder at the shivering human bundle sitting between their shoulder blades against the back of their neck, “You alright, boy?” they asked, their rumbling voice edging on concern, but mostly just trying to get some sort of conversation out of the boy. He’d been far too quiet the past few days and Sky was starting to dislike the long stretches of silence more and more. Not to mention that he just seemed not completely there and he had been more lethargic than his usual, energetic self. 

William finished wiping his nose, which was getting fairly red and raw in contrast to his pasty complexion, and looked up at his friend with a mostly forced smile, “Yeah I’m fine, you’ve asked me that, like, every time I so much as sniffle. Geez, stop worrying so much or you’ll give yourself wrinkles ya old iguana.” He responded with a laugh that was cut short by another longer fit of coughing. Sky winced very slightly when they felt his entire body shake with the force of his coughing. He leaned more heavily against the back of their neck as he tried to catch his breath again, nestling his mouth and nose down into his scarf to try and warm the air that was freezing cold to the point that it stung the lungs and left a bitter dryness on the tongue.

Sky let out an anxious huff of fire as their golden gaze lingered on their sickly companion for a second before they looked back ahead of them, they didn’t like traveling in the dark. While most creatures were hidden away from the cold at this point in the year there were others that could be stalking them in the dark. But the two of them wanted to get a certain amount of miles each day and the daylight being more and more limited each day and the snow slowing them down didn’t help them. Sky resorted to carrying William on their back, he ended up falling too far behind for them to watch when he had to trudge through the snow and his more recent deterioration in health only slowed him more. The dragon flicked their ear to get the newly fallen snow off of it and glanced back at William, “You know that we should stop for a while until you’re better, boy. Being out in the cold is only going to make that cough worse,” they stated.

William responded in his ever graceful manner, blowing a raspberry at them like the mature adult he was, “Don’t be such a mom about it, most humans get a little bit of a runny nose in the winter so it’s not a big deal.” He said in an upbeat tone made slightly raspy by abused lungs that were tired of coughing.

Sky grunted, obviously not buying that line of utter bullshit for a second. That was William as they had found out, always the one to hide any injury or ailment to make himself look tougher. They discreetly started to look for anything that might be useful as shelter for at least one night or more, slightly shifting the large deer skin bag of meat that they had strapped to their front left upper leg along with William’s hefty bag above the bracelet William had put on their wrist all those months ago. About a mile away through a thinner area in the trees they could see something that looked like a rocky outcropping with a cliff rising above it that looked like it might have a couple caves or an overhang, they pondered if the detour would be worth it and after peeking back at their pale human cargo who had his eyes closed for the moment decided to take the chance. They made a wide turn so that William wouldn’t feel the sudden change in their direction and become suspicious. As they approached the outcropping they felt William start to shake violently with the force of yet another coughing fit. Sky felt their concern grow as a full thirty seconds went by and he hadn’t stopped coughing. His whole frame was shuddering even in between the coughs as all the muscles in his body started to fatigue from the sheer force of the rasping barks that were forcing their way out of his lungs. Sky swung their head around to look back at him, worry etched into their features as they watched their companion struggle to get air back in his lungs. His eyes started to water, and tears streamed down his face with a small amount of steam coming off of them as they fell, while the coughs sounded more and more painful. He doubled over and leaned over the side of Sky’s shoulder with a hand braced against their neck to keep himself from falling off. Sky was internally panicking, they had no idea what to do. How were they supposed to help him, other than just sit back until it was over? Their level of panic only skyrocketed when he suddenly wretched and upchucked the contents of his stomach down onto the snow just a few feet away from Sky’s foot. Then he wobbled, flopped over, and rolled off of their shoulder before they could catch him.

As he fell towards the snow, they had a sudden flash of the memory of him plummeting down that cliff face about nine months ago and they couldn’t hold back a startled screech, rushing to pick him up out of the snow. They scooped his limp body out of the loosely packed powder with one giant hand and checked him over for any injuries, looking for any blood, even though he couldn’t really have gotten any really severe injury from such a short fall into soft snow, but they had to look. The incident with the mushramen had scared them a lot more than they would like to admit. When they sniffed him to further check him for blood he smelled pungently of sickness, even through the sharp sting of cold in their nose.

Sky shrunk down into their human guise to get a closer look at him and check his temperature without a layer of thick scales and a few hundred degree body temperature to keep them from feeling how warm he was. They had to use a bit more magic to change their outfit to include thick boots and a couple more layers, the two large bags dropped to the ground on their left along with their bracelet. They placed their clawed hand over his forehead and were first surprised by how sharply their darker skin contrasted against his pale face, then by the burning heat he was exuding. His skin felt clammy and his temperature must have been rising into the low hundred range. Despite his high temperature he started to shiver as if he were freezing and he curled in on himself in their arms. All they could think was damn him for not  
telling them he was getting sick, damn themself for not noticing, and damn the cold weather for probably making it worse. They sighed heavily after finishing muttering curses under their breath and looped their bracelet and the straps of the two bags over their available shoulder that didn’t have William’s head resting on it. They were easily able to carry William with one arm hooked around his back and under his knees, heft his heavy bag, and drag the meat bag behind them with the other arm as they headed over to the rocky outcropping with the hope of finding shelter for them and their sick companion.

After about another half an hour or so of trudging through snow, Sky finally made it to the base of the outcropping and cliff with no small amount of exerted effort and vulgarities being mumbled about all the goddamn snow. The twenty minutes after that were spent searching around to see if there were any cave openings or even any small crevices just big enough for them to stuff William into to give him some sort of shelter. After the second time they checked around the approximately hundred yard long expanse of rocks and sheer cliff face they finally found a tunnel that had been previously blocked from the view due to being almost covered by a large boulder. It was just tall enough for William to get through while having his hair touch the top of the entrance, but Sky would have to duck their head. They peaked into it and took a deep inhale through their nose to see if they could smell any sort of threat. They smelled nothing but dank, and the faint scent of fresh, running water. They didn’t want to risk running into something they couldn’t smell farther into the cave while carrying William, so they set him and their other cargo down just outside of the cave entrance and behind the large boulder so they wouldn’t be immediately visible to anyone or anything that was passing by. As they gingerly sat him down in the snow with his back up against his backpack, his eyes opened a little to stare up at Sky with his eyes glazed over with fever and he made a small, cracking noise in the back of his throat that sounded vaguely questioning. Sky couldn’t explain why at the time, but they felt an odd squeeze in their chest that was fairly unfamiliar. They did their best to ignore it and wrapped his disheveled scarf more securely around him before moving to his backpack to rummage around and see if they still had any more torches left. They found two, they decided to use one and then use their bracelet to strap the other to their hip just in case the other ran out when they were still in the cave.

Sky had to muster a bit of magic and temporarily give their humanoid form the organs necessary for breathing fire, setting their torch alight before they ducked into the cave entrance. They only looked back at the huddled up form of William in the snow amongst their supplies once, or maybe twice, before continuing on into the tunnel. Their torch lit up about ten feet in front of them. Most of the inside of the cave was dusted with frost and ice on the rocks. Things seemed to thaw the deeper they went into the tunnel, water started dripping down from the ceiling in places after they’d been walking for about five minutes. The tunnel started to get taller and they could straighten their neck back out, which was a small blessing but a blessing none the less. Then the ceiling and walls seemed to disappear altogether and they stared into darkness. Again, they gave themselves the fire breathing organs that they normally had in their larger form, not wanting to risk changing in this place before they were sure of it’s size. They shot out a large ball of fire that illuminated the entire cavern with a burst of intense orange light. They had to repeat the process once or twice more to be able to see the entirety of the cavern in detail.The cavern they’d stumbled upon could fit Sky comfortably in their larger form, even if they stood, and had enough extra space for an entire large campsite to be set up by William. The left side looked as if it had an underground spring that ran down from high on the wall, over the rocks, and into a pool which ran into a small stream going into another offshoot tunnel too narrow for even William to fit through. It was perfect and Sky could have cried in absolute joy if they hadn’t refused to believe that they had any working tear ducts.

Sky headed back towards the mouth of the cave where William was still curled up in the snow and shivering while he waited for them. Before they took him and their supplies into the cave, they went out into the trees a short ways and picked up as many dry sticks as they could find, sticking them into William’s backpack before they picked him up along with their supplies. The squeeze was a little tighter when there was so much to get into the cave and when the tunnel was only about three feet wide in places while the meat bag was about four feet wide. Needless to say, they learned a lot about what they term “like threading a sausage through the eye of a needle” meant, and if William was awake he would have learned a few new curse words from some languages he didn’t even speak, and from some countries he had never been to. They finally made it to the cavern and set William down propped against the right wall with their supplies, going to work on getting the beginning of a fire going. They set up a ring of stones that were roughly the same size in roughly the center of the cave so that it would hopefully light up the space while also being able to keep William warm. They set the sticks they’d gathered down in the rock ring in a sort of teepee style and blew fire into it to set the kindling ablaze. It didn’t light up much and it wasn’t nearly big enough to provide any sort of heat for keeping William dry and warm or to cook on. 

They spent the next roughly thirty to forty minutes bustling in and out of the cave, gathering sticks in bundles and building up the fire until it was on the verge of being considered a bonfire and gave at least a little illumination to all of the cavern. They thanked every human deity they could think of off the top of their head that the ceilings were so high so that they wouldn’t smoke themself and William out. Once they were done taking care of that they turned their attention back to William whom had been drifting in and out of consciousness to have spurts of wet, painful sounding coughs. Sky walked over to him and noticed that he had landed in his own vomit a little on one side when he rolled off of their shoulder earlier and that it was starting to thaw slightly. They made a face and quickly checked themself over to see if he’d gotten any on them. Once they were satisfied that, no, they didn’t have any William puke on them, they went to work moving him closer to the fire and getting him out of his cold, wet, and slightly puked on clothes. When they got him out of his thermal underwear, which were also slightly damp, they found that he was still wearing that fucking ridiculous chain-mail bikini and they had to stop for a minute to glare at it in disdain. They resisted the urge to take it off of him and “accidentally” drop it in the fire. But even if it was stupid it had saved his life once so they decided that they would allow him to keep the silver and gold monstrosity… For now. 

They dug a clean change of clothes out of his bag plus one extra shirt and one extra pair of socks to help keep him warm but not warm enough to keep his fever from cooling. They dressed him as he quietly grumbled incoherently and flopped around in whichever direction Sky directed him to go to get him in his clothes, still shivering like he was freezing and coughing in stops and starts. Once he was dressed they spread out his sleeping roll, which was surprisingly dry, nearby but not too close to the fire and laid him down on it, bundling him up in most of the blankets that he had in his bag. They resided to the fact that they weren’t going to get much sleep that night and decided to wash his clothes for him, seeing that he wasn’t going to be able to anytime soon. Worry was still seeded in their gut as they scrubbed his clothes with a bar of homemade soap made from ingredients William had found in the forest in the freezing cold pool of water. Their mind was steadily buzzing with a mixture of concerns about how they were going to be able to take care of him when he was so sick and wondering when he would get better. Once they had laid his clothes out next to the fire on the stone floor of the cave to dry they finally changed back into their larger form. 

They looked down at the pink faced, shaking human who seemed to be having a bit of a bad dream based on how his brow furrowed a little, just enough to form a crease in between them. He looked so fragile and tired and they found themself staring at him before they shook their head and laid down behind him, curling their body in a crescent shape around him and the fire. They laid a little closer to him than they normally did in an attempt to keep him warm. He rolled to face away from the fire and ended up nestled up against their blue belly, his knees drawn up to his chest so his shins were pressed against their underbelly scales and his forehead pressed against them as well. They felt a pang of something go through their chest again and decided not to look at him anymore. They were starting to become startled and a little scared at how much they cared about the scrawny little hairless ape they’d come to know as the first friend they’d had in almost 500 years of life. It was a feeling that clawed at the inside of their stomach along with the sickening worry for him they held there. The feeling of needing to protect someone, care for them, make sure they were safe and happy was something foreign in their mind and assumably as well as with their entire species in general and only now had they realized just how utterly badly they wanted William around them. Not just then either, the incident with the cliff was the only time besides losing their wing that they had felt that kind of gut wrenching panic and fear at the possibility of losing something. They glanced back down at William one last time before closing their eyes for the night and pondered just how they got in this deep, just how they’d become so soft towards something that would otherwise be considered prey. They also pondered just how they had ended up behaving like a damn brooding mother hen over someone who was supposed to be a grown ass man and yet somehow couldn’t even realize that he needed to rest for a few days to let his sickness pass. They ended up drifting in and out of sleep that whole night with almost every raspy cough William let out and alternating between being irritated at him and worried sick about him.

* * *

The after two days of constantly doting on William it was clear that his fever was only getting worse, he’d even began hallucinating at a couple points and called Sky his “giant pretty kitty” even if they were in their humanoid form. Every time they felt his forehead he seemed to get warmer and they began to feel a constant, gnawing panic eating at their insides. Could humans cook themselves to death with their fevers? Was it possible that this sickness was worse than they’d first expected and that his organs were shutting down or something horrible like that? They knew next to nothing about the human body and their various illnesses so their mind was making all sorts of leaps that weren’t helping them take care of him at all. They tried getting a wet rag on his forehead and that seemed to at least make him feel a little better but they doubted it did much for his fever. When he wasn’t sleeping or mumbling nonsense he was coughing and that was what scared Sky the most. He coughed so hard he threw up once or twice more which wasn’t helping keep fluids and food in him and his entire body seemed to be getting progressively more worn down from going through the harsh convulsions of his coughing fits again and again. They were so tiring for him that most of the time he either just laid in an exhausted heap on his sleeping roll and stared with glassy eyes at the ceiling of the cave or slept. The most Sky could do was at least attempt to get him to eat little bits at a time, keep him drinking as much water as he could stomach, and keep him warm when he started shivering using either their own body heat or by piling blankets on him.

After the first two days of him being so ill, Sky was beginning to get desperate for anything to help. They would even have considered seeking out Alder for assistance again if they didn’t know that it would take too long. So instead they took the opportunity while he was sleeping to take a look in that herb book he kept in his backpack and used for making soap and for cooking spices. They couldn’t read very well though, they hadn’t really had a need for it until then. But they would at least make an attempt if it meant keeping him alive. So they began looking through his bag in their smaller form and they found it in between a couple other old and tattered books about astronomy and survival in the wild that William had been reading repetitively throughout the journey in between traversing various dangers and practicing with his sword. He mostly read the astronomy book though, he loved the stars. They flipped open the hemp cloth bound cover of the book and started looking for keywords, like “fever” or “cough” and just about anything else pertaining to sickness and how to treat it. It took what seemed forever to skim through the words on the pages and sound out various words that looked promising. It was an almost painfully slow process and after the first fifty pages or so they had almost decided that they wouldn’t find anything of any use, not to mention they were getting increasingly annoyed with themselves because of how long it took them to read every little thing. They’d found a few plants for treating both cough and fever but they were either extremely rare, didn’t grow in winter, or didn’t grow in their region of the kingdom, or in one case all three. That was until they came across a specific tree that they almost over looked entirely. It was called the sjukdom tree and not only did it grow in the area but it wasn’t all that rare but Sky had actually seen it before based on the detailed drawing next to the description. 

The root of the tree was supposed to do wonders for fever if it was cut up and boiled into tea. But Sky was going to have to go looking for it first and they could only hope that the nearest tree was close enough so they wouldn’t have to leave William alone for more than a day. Hell, they didn’t even know if they were comfortable with leaving him by himself like this for more than a few hours. The poor idiot might roll his way into the fire or something while they were away. They had to get going soon before he got any worse. They looked him over one last time to check for any other problems that might have developed between then and the past hour when they’d checked him last and freshly wetted the cloth they had draped over his forehead. After that they headed out with a small burlap bag with them, only stopping to look back at him once or twice on the way out of the large cavern when they heard him mumble something incoherent or let out a painful sounding cough.

They made their way out of the cave and into the snow and after changing into their larger form and securing the bag on a string around their neck they began searching through the trees for the one that would help their companion. The snow was starting to come down a little heavier and the wind was picking up outside the cave entrance, they didn’t let it bother them as they trudged out into the bitter cold. According to the description that they had to read through several times to make sure they read everything right, the tree had a light, almost white colored bark that was mostly smooth except for the fact that it tended to grow with odd lumps and curves in the trunk. The branches drooped down towards the ground and the leaves were smaller and more circular with a dark green color. A white tree wasn’t an ideal thing to be trying to locate in the middle of the winter but they were determined to find it. They tromped through the snow in the forest for several hours, moving in a crescent pattern back and forth while slowly moving further out into the trees so they could closely inspect every one. They had gone a ways away from the cave, the snow was getting heavier and the wind blowing more fiercely with every passing hour until it stung their face and made it hard to see more than a few feet in front of them. 

They had to squint against the blisteringly chilly wind and they weren’t seeming to be making any progress in finding the damn tree they needed to make William better. They went to each tree and dusted the snow off of them to look at the bark and look at the branches, grumbling to themself in a deep growling tone about the things they do for that blonde idiot while internally they were growing anxious as to how William was faring without them there to watch over him. Still, they were determined to come back with the root even if it meant spending a whole day out in the blizzard that was whipping around them. They wouldn’t leave him alone for more than a day though, being out for as long as they already had been was risky. William needed to be made to eat and drink to keep his strength up if he was going to get any better. They couldn’t afford to lose him.

After a couple more hours of searching the dragon spotted a tree that looked promising a little ways ahead of them. It had an odd angle in it’s trunk about half way up to the branches and a lump on one side, the branches almost touched the ground with the weight of the snow on them. They tromped over to it and whipped the snow off just to be sure it was the right color and flapped their wing and the stump that used to be their other wing happily in a fairly childish display of joy for a dragon of their age. They were just glad William wasn’t around to see that. They quickly went to work at melting the snow around the base of the tree and digging into the frozen dirt with their front claws. They soon got to a large root and switched to their smaller form to jump into the shallow pit they’d dug to break off pieces of it and stuff it in the small sack they had with them. Once they had as much as they saw necessary they changed back, secured the bag to themself again, and began heading back. They decided to melt away a path in front of them through the snow. If they needed to find the tree again the trench would stand out against the deeper snow on either side of it and lead them back to it. They also grabbed some fire wood on the way back, once his fever went down he would need more to keep him warm.

Once they made their way back to the cave they were thoroughly spent, making their way through the snow and using their ability to breath fire so much was tiring. Their legs were growing stiff with the cold and they could feel the soreness in their fire producing organs in their throat from over exertion. But finding the root made them hopeful, it was almost enough to drive out the gnawing of worry in their gut. They shrunk down to a smaller size and made their way into the darkness of the cave with the bag of medicinal roots in hand.

They walked into the fire lit cavern to see that William wasn’t getting any better, he had kicked off his blankets and managed to unbutton both his layers of shirts. He looked as if he wasn’t breathing normally and he was sweating with his fever, his brows were furrowed and he had a look of discomfort on his face. They first rewetted his rag and quickly wiped down his face and neck, leaving the rag on his forehead as they hurried to get what they needed prepared to boil the root into a tea. They washed the root and cut it into roughly quarter inch thick slices, plopping them into some water in one of William’s several pots. The root smelled strongly bitter and they figured they would have to put in some of that jar of honey William had gathered by smoking out a beehive a few months back so he wouldn’t immediately spit it out. They also went about cooking some meat for him on the fire. 

Then they moved on to fussing around with William, mostly trying to keep his rag cool enough and keep his clothes on which he seemed determined to take off, while his tea and meat were cooking. They had to say that their level of patience had vastly improved since they met him. The tea finally came to a boil and after they put some in a cup and stirred in a few spoonfuls of honey they had to go through the task of making him drink it. Sky only had one arm to work with in their smaller form so they had to prop him up against one shoulder while sitting down with him partially sitting in their lap and use the other hand to attempt to give him the tea. He was mostly incoherent but he took one smell of the tea, wrinkled his nose, and made a little whiney noise of protest as he wiggled to try and get away. Okay, so maybe their levels of patience still weren’t the best in the world.

They growled lightly at him in frustration, “Boy, if you don’t drink this willingly I’m going to force you to drink it.” they grumbled at him. They glared at him but mostly out of worry for him and frustration that he wouldn’t take his damn medicine. He tried to hide his face in the bend where their neck met their shoulder with another resistant whine when they tried to give the tea to him a second time. They almost snapped at him until they felt how hot his forehead was against their neck and switched from annoyance back to concern for him. They decided that they were done fooling around, he needed to drink the tea one way or another.

Sky took what would be about one swallow of the tea in their mouth, making a little bit of a face at the bitter taste that the honey barely began to cover. They noted gratefully that it had cooled down enough not to burn William’s mouth by then. They set the cup down and guided William’s face away from their shoulder with their hand so he was looking up at them. His eyes looked hazy but there was a small spark of vague confusion in them when they started to move in closer to his face with theirs. They had seen humans do something like this without the tea involved when Sky disguised themself and wandered amongst them on rare occasions in the past, they didn’t know what it’s purpose was or what it was called but they thought it would be useful for this. They tilted their head to the right and pressed their lips to his. He made a small noise when they used their tongue to get him to open his mouth and accept the medicinal tea, they didn’t know if the noise was disgust at the taste of the tea but it didn’t really sound like it. They made sure he swallowed it all and backed away to let him breathe, he coughed a couple times but the honey seemed to be helping his throat. 

Sky had to make him to drink the whole cup that way, which took about thirteen mouth fulls. After the first three or four times William started to let out small sounds and sighs and had one of his hands weakly gripped onto the bottom of their blouse. Sky didn’t really know why he was reacting that way at the time, sure it felt a sort of nice but they guessed that it was more of a human thing and let it go. The last few times they gave him the tea he tried to chase Sky’s lips, made lazy attempts at moving his mouth against theirs in an odd way they didn’t really understand the purpose of, and made soft noises of protest when they pulled away from him. 

Once they finished they tried to move away to get his meat for him and he made another of those protesting noises and wrapped his arms around them to try and keep them from leaving, burying his face in their neck again. They let out a huff and unwrapped his arms from around them as gingerly as possible much to his annoyance. They patted his head in a way that they would deny was affectionate if anyone asked them about it and went to get his dinner. He stayed sitting up but he still seemed to be delusional with his fever, he mumbled something nonsensical that sounded sad and a little questioning before he coughed a few times. They came back with his meat on a stick and sat back down with him in his nest of blankets that he’d formed on his sleeping roll. He immediately went back to trying to hide his face in their neck and clinging onto them, Sky rolled their eyes and had to coax him out so he could eat. They managed to get him to eat half of the large hunk of meat and he was mostly able to do it on his own, him being able to do something on his own made them hopeful that he was possibly getting slightly better already. He wouldn’t let them leave even while they finished off the rest of the piece of meat, they were lucky that dragon’s being reptiles ment they only had to eat about a cow’s worth of meat once a week. They didn’t feel hungry at the moment but they knew that once they did they would eat most of the meat they had stored in the large bag that was still sitting against the wall of the cavern. 

When they finished eating they threw the stick into the fire from where they sat and resided to the fact that they weren’t going to be changing back into their larger form that night. William seemed to have drifted back to sleep while they ate and they didn’t want to disturb him by getting up. He seemed to be resting more peacefully than he had, he wasn’t mumbling or twitching at all. They managed to get their coat and boots off before they laid down onto the sleeping mat with William laying halfway on their chest. They looked down at his sleeping face and felt a startling wave of fondness wash over them. They looked away from his face and decided that so long as William never found out it couldn’t hurt to just let themself indulge in the urge to coddle him just a little. They wrapped their arm around his back and held him, burying their face in his curly golden hair and letting out a deep rumble from the back of their throat as they exhaled. It was a sign of deep content in dragons and they rarely made the sound with other people present. Sky decided to make an exception seeing that William wasn’t awake and wouldn’t even know what it meant. They closed their eyes and let themself drift to sleep, it was actually fairly comfortable to sleep with William like that so it didn’t take long for them to be completely dead to the world.

* * *

The next morning Sky woke up slowly and found themself with their face still pressed into William’s hair but the hair was that on the back of his head. They also still had their arm draped over him but now their chest was pressed against his upper back. Their hair had also come undone during the night so their hair was messy and was probably going to be a pain to untangle and get to lay flat in places. Thank god they didn’t need to stay in this form or worry about it too much. They went to sit up and felt a hand weakly grab their wrist and heard a sleepy croak, “Don’t move, you’re warm.” William grumbled at them, his voice sounded strained and rough like he’d been gargling rocks.

Sky sat bolt upright and leaned over him to look at his face, placing a hand on his forehead to check his temperature before even speaking. “William? You’re awake?” They asked urgently. He felt like his temperature had gone down and they would have flapped their wings in happiness if they had any at the moment.

William whined at them and swatted their hand away, “Yeah, I’m awake.” He sounded grumpy but Sky was just excited to hear him saying things that made sense again. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, glancing around the cavern once after his vision was clear. “Where are we? Did you set this all up last night or something?” He asked, sounding fairly confused.

Sky raised an eyebrow, he had no idea how long they’d been there. They quickly felt irritation growing in their chest like fire, remembering the fact that he let himself get this sick without saying a _single word_ to them. “No, I set all this up three days ago. That’s how long you’ve been so sick you were delirious.” They said in a low voice that rumbled with anger. “Why exactly did I not hear you say anything about you having a fever or about you being sick at all?” They asked, their golden eyes burning into him like red hot daggers with their plain irritation at him. 

William looked at his lap and fidgeted, “I didn’t think it was that serious..” He replied meekly, only daring a few darting glances towards Sky’s face.

Sky huffed out of their nose, “Not that serious? You were coughing so hard you threw up, _multiple times_. You had such a high fever you didn’t have so much as one lucid moment for _three fucking days_ until I managed to get some fever reducing tree root tea in you. Do you have **any** idea how worried I was? I thought you were going to die and that I wouldn’t be able to do a **single fucking thing** about it.” Their voice was a dangerous growl and they leaned closer to him as they spoke.

William looked like a puppy that had been kicked and he shrunk farther in on himself the more intense Sky became. “...I’m sorry.” He spoke softly like he was scared to speak too loud.

“Now, you are going to answer me and answer me, _truthfully_ , why didn’t you tell me you were sick?” Under their anger they were actually a little hurt. Did he not trust them to the point where he thought they would ridicule him or think less of him for getting sick? Sure they teased him sometimes but if he was physically unable to continue on the journey then so be it, they would understand and help set up camp.

William wasn’t looking at them at all now and he was toying with the blankets over his legs, Sky waited patiently for him to answer their question. They weren’t really expecting the answer they received. “I didn’t want to hold you back any more than I already do. You already had to carry me because I couldn’t keep up and I’m tired of slowing you down… I can tell you want to get your prosthetic as soon as you can and I guess I kind of feel bad for forcing you to slow down for me.” He sounded absolutely ashamed of himself.

Sky felt that squeezing in their chest and this time it felt like they’d been punched, their pointed ears drooped slightly. They immediately felt like a colossal ass for getting pissy with him. They slumped just barely and let out a deep sigh, standing up to get him some of the meat they’d been drying out for breakfast. As they walked past him they decided to do something uncharacteristic and something William would probably hold against them later, they reached down and patted his head before lightly tousling his hair. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want a new wing as soon as possible, but not at the price of your health. If you need to stop traveling for a while for whatever reason I will have no qualms with doing so. I don’t mind if you slow me down, William. You’re the reason I started moving in the first place.” They turned and walked towards the fire where the dry meat was sitting on a rock closer to the flames. The heat from the fire was intense to the point of feeling like there was actual pressure behind it but they didn’t mind much, they stuck a strip in their mouth to see if it was dry enough before taking some back over to William.

When they turned around they caught William looking at them with a mixture of something akin to surprise and something they couldn’t quite read on his face. He hadn’t fixed his hair where they messed it up and he quickly looked away from them as if he was embarrassed to be caught staring. They raised an eyebrow but didn’t question it out loud, they moved back over to him and sat down with him again. The sleeping mat was surprisingly comfy and warm and they figured that they didn’t really need a good excuse to sit on it. The two of them had just slept together on it so what would sitting together matter? They plopped down with a small grunt and thrust the dried meat into William’s face with the command of “eat.” Once he had started munching on the dried deer-jerky strips they opted to close their eyes for at least a little while. Being mostly awake for three days while looking after a feverish idiot could really take it out of a person. 

Their eyes flew back open when they felt something bump up against their shoulder. It was William who had decided to use them as something to lean on while he ate. His head rested right on their upper bicep and they could feel his jaw working as he chewed and swallowed his breakfast, “What exactly are you doing, boy?” They inquired, genuinely curious about the purpose of using them as a headrest.

William quickly went to sit back up, “Oh, um, sorry. I was just kind of, uh… Leaning on you I guess.” He sounded bashful.

Sky raised their eyebrow again, “It’s not entirely uncomfortable, really. I just didn’t really see why you needed to lean on me. You aren’t feeling light headed are you?” The were quickly feeling their concern grow, was his fever coming back or something?

William shook his head and held up his hands to try and assure them, “No no, it’s not that, I swear. It was just kind of… What felt comfortable I guess.”

Sky relaxed a bit, “Alright. By the way, let me know if your fever feels like it’s coming back so I can give you more of that tea.”

William smiled at them genuinely for the first time in a while, “I will, you big worry wart.” He replied, sounding affectionate rather than teasing. He went back to leaning on Sky’s shoulder while happily munching on his deer jerky. Sky actually let the corners of their mouth flick up into a small smile as well and decided that since he was leaning on them then they could return the gesture, resting their head on top of his. William didn’t really seem to mind. “Hey Sky?” He said, his throat catching on Sky’s name and making him cough a couple times.

“What is it, boy?” They replied, sounding a little distracted. They were breathing through their nose and drinking in his scent, even under the strong odor of sickness he still smelled like the herbal soap he washed with and the musky smell of a young man. It was surprisingly nice, why hadn’t they ever gotten this close to him before?

“I feel like shit.” He stated plainly, Sky let out a low chuckle and William joined in until he decided to go back to eating his deer jerky strips. They had to admit that even if his constant chattering had gotten on their nerves every once in a while, and by that they meant just about every fifteen minutes, they were glad to hear his voice again. They went back to resting their eyes for a while, falling into a comfortable silence without worry sitting in their chest for the first time in three days.


	2. William takes his shirt off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sky doesn't know how to deal with hormones and honestly it's pretty hilarious. Also some other stuff happens but Sky not knowing how to deal with having a sex drive is a lot more fun.

After a week and a half of being in the cave and being doted on Sky constantly, William finally seemed to get better. Turns out what he’d needed to force the sickness out of his lungs was a root to another plant that went dormant during winter, making it harder to find but not impossible. It was called Northern turmeric root, it was a variation of the plant that grew in the warmer climates of the south. It was more hardy and could last the winters but it still had the same effects of breaking up infected mucus from the lungs and expelling it. William had to help them look through his herb book so it didn’t take as long to find it as it did with the tree root, he teased them a little for not being able to read well but was actually surprisingly helpful. After giving him the tree root and turmeric root powder tea once a day to keep his fever down and clear his lungs he was finally back to his whiny, overly excitable, obnoxious self. And despite Sky’s nagging and poorly concealed worry that he would make himself worse again with overexertion, he went back to practicing his with his sword at every opportunity and doing exercises and stretches when he wasn’t doing that. To “keep himself from getting rusty and from losing his muscle mass” he claimed. He didn’t exactly think it was funny when Sky replied with “well you can’t lose what you never had so you’re good”. 

Something felt like it changed slightly after the first night Sky slept with him on his mat however. They couldn’t quite put a claw on it but it seemed like there was a sort of barrier that had been removed by them being so close to him. Before it was like being that near to him was just something that wasn’t supposed to be done, a subconscious taboo that had been enforced unknowingly by Sky or William or both of them without either of them really recognizing it even being there. But once William didn’t show any aversion to it and even asked them to sleep next to him again a few times after, that unspoken rule had been dissolved. They shared a lot of casual touches since then, mostly while Sky was in their smaller form. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, leaning on each other like they did the morning after Sky force fed him that tea, and holding each other while they slept. They were surprisingly comfortable with it, it just seemed nice, relaxed. William never rejected any of the contact, hell he was the one who was initiating it most of the time, which was also good because they didn’t know about human comfort levels with physical contact at all. 

They were so busy with things like taking care of William, going out to get more food, and gathering firewood that they hardly noticed that their horns had started to shed thin, papery layers of their older outer coating and there was a slight ache in their lower abdomen that came and went for a few days. They brushed it off and ignored the flakes falling from their head while they were in their larger form, William complained a couple times and said that it was gross but he didn’t really question it. The two symptoms didn’t click in their head as a sign of a much bigger impending problem until the occasional discomfort in their lower stomach turned into a mild but constant ache in their loins and crotch. That was when it finally dawned on them that, oh shit, they were going into their first heat.

They panicked a little internally at first but kept it from William, knowing how painfully awkward that conversation would go over seeing that they were fairly blunt and he was fairly immature and naive. All dragons went into their first heat at around age five hundred, give or take about thirty years or so. Technically they were considered an early bloomer amongst their kind. It was pretty much the only time they had any sort of sexual impulses at all and it wouldn’t go away unless they went out, found another dragon in heat, did the reptilian nasty, and ended up impregnating each other with one or two eggs for each of them to carry to a safe place to lay them and leave them. Not very romantic but, eh, it worked for keeping the dwindling species population in decent numbers, even if they only bred every 500 years. It was unfortunate that it would only end once they had an egg in their gut but they could deal with it, from what they understood it was supposed to be around equal to an average human labido and if little flesh monkeys could live with it then they could. It wasn’t like they were going to abandon William to fend for himself in the middle of the winter to go search on foot for some other giant, horny lizard to fuck. They didn’t know why but even if another dragon came to them they didn’t even know if they would breed with them. It just wouldn’t feel right to leave William in the cave by himself while they did something like _that_ with some stranger outside.

So they opted to deal with a little discomfort and kept themself busy in the meantime to act as a distraction. They had only gone into their heat a few days before William was better and had decided that he was ready to get back to the journey. He hopped up from doing his daily round of sit ups before lunch and plopped down next to Sky, who was gnawing on deer bones to get at the marrow in their larger form. They found that the sound of their teeth scraping against and cracking the bone reverberating through their skull served well at drowning out William’s grunts and groans of effort while he was exercising. His noises made their mind go to places they weren’t entirely comfortable with and made that ache in their damn crotch worse. He was supposed to be their friend, for God’s sake and while they didn’t know a whole lot about human platonic relations they were pretty damn sure that fantasizing about the person who was supposed to be their friend was kind of a big no-no. William forced them from staring into space with a blank eyed glare, internally cursing their species’ stupid reproductive cycle, by getting up and waving a hand in front of one of their eyes, “Hellooo~ Sky are you there cause I’m kinda trying to ask you something here.” He sounded amused by them being so distracted but it was starting to concern them, if they weren’t focused they couldn’t properly protect him.

They dropped the bone that they had apparently been grinding between their teeth absentmindedly while they were distracted and cleared their throat, “Sorry, I was… Thinking about something. What is it you wanted to babble to me about now?”

William walked towards them casually and sat down with a sigh and his hands folded behind his head, leaning back against their chest in front of their left arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a human to use a dragon as a back rest. “Well, I was kind of wondering when we were going to ditch this hole in the ground, as nice of a hole as it truly is, and get back to making our way out of this god forsaken tree infested hellscape. Seriously, once we’re out of this forest I never want to see another tree again. Only prairie lands and deserts for us in our future travels.” He chattered at them, looking up at them with a grin as he waited for their response.

They looked back down at him sideways, “Hm, I’ve been meaning to tell you that actually. I think it’s best if we leave when the spring comes and the snow thaws in two months.” They didn’t say it like he could argue it, they stated it like a fact that it was what they were going to do. And they had meant for it to sound that way, there was no way possible that they were going to allow him to travel in the snow after him getting so sick. 

William sat up straight and turned his body to look into their eye, “Wait wait wait, what? What do you mean spring? That’d be a huge waste of time! We would-” 

“We would make it out of the forest by early summer without having to travel through possible snowstorms.” They continued for him. “Winter is not a favorable season for travel, and especially not for people who, as it turns out, are prone to getting lung infections. I’m not going to risk you getting sick a second time because we won't find a shelter like this a second time.” They started out in a stern tone but it softened gradually to be more gentle, or at least as gentle as it could get. They hadn’t meant to allow their concern to leak through into their words but they couldn’t help that they were terrified of the prospect of him getting sick in a place where they couldn’t keep him warm and safe.

William’s eyes searched around and his mouth opened and closed like he was mentally grasping for the words to form an argument, after a couple seconds he seemed to pull something together, “But if we wait all winter you’ll have to wait longer to get your wing! You said yourself that you wanted to get your wing as soon as you could.” He stammered out, gesturing around with his hands in the way he did when he was enthusiastic about something, which was a lot of the time now that they thought about it.

They snorted, “And if you were actually listening then you’d remember that I said that I would do what’s best for your health as well.” They replied with a level tone, standing their ground on the subject despite him giving them that puppy-dog look with those big blue eyes of his that sometimes felt like a punch to the genitals when they looked into them in recent days. Those fucking hormones were a bitch to deal with, how did humans not jump each other’s bones at every given opportunity? Not that they wanted to jump William’s bones. Goddamn fucking hormones.

William went to retort, “But I’m not sick any-”

“Anymore, I know, but I’m not risking you getting sick or getting hypothermia or something. There are plenty of deer in the area to keep us fed, I can even try teach you to hunt with that sword of yours if you want something to keep you busy.” They interrupted once more. 

“But-”

“No buts, we’re staying here for the rest of the winter and that’s final William.” The sternness of their tone made him finally stop trying to argue. 

He crossed his arms across his chest and hung his head to pout like the giant child he was, “Okay _mom_ , fine.” He grumbled half to himself.

Sky snorted at him again, “I might as well be your mother seeing that I babysit you constantly and just had to nurse you back to health for a week and a half.” They retorted, laying their head back down on the dirt and rock floor of the cave and closing their eyes.

William stuck his tongue out at them and bounced up to go get his lunch of deer meat and tuber root stew that had been simmering on the fire, he had gone out with Sky to forage for something to eat other than venison when they went out to get some more firewood. He came trotting back once he’d filled up a wooden bowl, which he made by hand a while back, with some stew. The heat of which was apparently seeping through the bowl and burning his hands because he was chanting “hot hot hot hot hot!” under his breath the entire way over. He set his bowl down on the ground so he could sit down without it sloshing, nestling himself under their arm and leaning against them again with a happy hum. They cracked a small, amused smile when they knew he was distracted by eating, they tried to blame their heat for finding his antics endearing.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

A few more days went by at about the same pace as they did before, Sky would go out  
into the snow and get firewood with William in toe, they would eat together, have meaningless conversations about nothing of any consequence, and at the end of the day settle down to sleep next to each other. Sky’s heat was still as obnoxiously there as it was before so trying to sleep while holding William wasn’t helping. At all. But when he looked up at them with those insufferably imploring baby blues and asked them to change into their smaller form they found out that they had surprisingly little will power. As a result they got little to no sleep due to being restless and their crotch felt like one big bruise. They liked sleeping next to him, they really did, it was warm and comfortable and it just felt good in ways they had never experienced before.

Sky continued on with William not knowing about their heat none the less, they even kept that promise of teaching him to hunt, which mostly turned out to be entertainment for Sky. They tried to teach him about stalking and waiting for the last minute to strike but the result was William running out of the trees towards a deer, letting out a “battle cry”, which was just him yelling like he was crazy, with his sword raised above his head. He ended up slipping in a wet patch of snow and falling on his ass halfway between the deer and the trees he just came from. The deer just looked at him, flicked their ear, and bounded away. Sky was laughing so hard that they had to lean on a tree trunk while clutching their stomach, they sort of forgot to go help William out of the snow. He decided to keep to just practicing with his sword and exercising in the cave after that.

But the whole “William exercising in the cave” thing was starting to be a problem for them. It seemed like the longer they tried to ignore their heat the more it started to turn **everything** into something that made them horny. And by everything they meant pretty much just anything that had to do with William. They had taken up the new hobby of discreetly watching him do his work outs like a giant creep, they decided to settle on the rule of “you can look, hell you can even fantasize, but you can’t touch”. They laid on the cave floor on the far right side next to the wall, pretending to be resting their eyes and peaking at him when he wasn’t looking. He was practicing different angles of swinging his sword, they had to admit that he was getting good, he was actually able to put some power behind his swings and control the blade well. But at that moment they were more admiring something other than his skills with a blade. He was facing away from them, towards the fire in the middle of the cave, and they could see the muscles in his shoulders and back moving like rolling waves under his shirt with every movement. They had to admit that humans really did have a certain aesthetic appeal to them, so to speak. Or at least he did. Did watching him like this help their current predicament? Nope. Could they help being just a little (a lot) creepy? Not really. Was it concerning that they were lusting after their friend? Absolutely. Too bad they found themselves caring less and less about how concerning it was, which was probably a bad thing.

He stopped momentarily to wipe the sweat off his brow and muttered something along the lines of “too damn hot in here”. He put his sword back in its sheath and grabbed the hem of his shirt. They couldn’t help their eyes widening and their mouth watering just a little when he started to pull his shirt up, his body had honestly turned into something beautiful with all that sword practice and working out. His tan was starting to fade but it didn’t really take away from the way the newly developed muscles of his back were moving the farther he pulled up his shirt, his skin shining with a thin sheen of perspiration. Then they saw the first flash of a dangling, garish silver and gold string. And just like that it seemed like every drop of their sex drive was simultaneously drained from their being. They knew they should have ditched that ridiculous fucking bikini in the fire when they had the chance. They took a long moment to glare daggers at the thin straps criss-crossing over his shoulder blades as he was tossing his shirt to the side, sending a loud mental “fuck you” to the bikini until they realized that they were pissed off at an inanimate object for snapping them out of their ogling session. Then it hit them that they were just staring at William like he was a piece of meat, Maybe being alone with him so much was starting to wear on their resolve just a little.They needed some fresh air.

Sky stood up and stretched one limb at a time before they changed forms and headed towards the exit, “I’m going for a walk. Don’t stab yourself with your sword or anything while I’m gone.” They stated briskly as they started down the dark tunnel, they could feel William’s concerned gaze burning into the back of their head but they willed themself to keep walking without meeting his eyes. They didn’t need a light source to find their way through the pitch black cave anymore. 

They needed to blow off some of that pent up sexual frustration, and just frustration, in general. Once they got outside they switched back to their true form and spread their wing out to it’s full span, letting out a deep bellow and a fireball that was loud and bright enough to be seen and heard for a mile. They sighed and figured they should wander for a while, maybe that would help clear their head some. They were starting to worry themself, what if one day they got too wound up and hurt William in some horrible way they didn’t even want to think about? They cared about him so much that sometimes it felt like their chest was tearing itself open for him to see into. They knew deep down that they would always find the restraint to keep themself from really hurting him like that. But they had made a habit in the last few months of calculating any possible threat to him, now matter how slim the chances were of that threat being realistic. And in their eyes that threat was starting to be themself. It was so strange to think that just over seventy five years ago they had no problem with scorching and destroying anyone and anything that challenged them and now it felt like driving a wooden spike through between their ribs to even think about hurting William. They guessed that he, along with many years of solitude prior to meeting him, had changed them. For the better or worse they couldn’t tell yet.

Sky wandered for a couple hours through the trees and they stillness only broken by small winter birds flitting from branch to branch around them, they had to make sure not to go too far away from the cave while they pondered over their situation with William. They mostly thought over how they were going to keep their heat at bay. The longer they went without “burning off some steam”, the worse their impulses would be. But even if they decided to take care of their urges on their own, which wasn’t likely to happen with either William pretty much _always_ around them or being out in the open the rest of the time, it would only temporarily work. But they had few other choices at the moment. They knew that William probably wasn’t going to want to do anything with them like that, he just seemed to naive and innocent to them to even think about him wanting to do that sort of thing. Not to mention that he most likely wasn’t weird like them and wouldn’t want to do the whole interspecies horizontal tango like them. 

Once about two hours had passed and Sky decided they’d left William alone for long enough they headed back, going faster on the return journey than they did while walking away. Something just felt uneasy in their gut, something that they couldn’t put a claw on but it just made them anxious to get back to the cave and William.

When Sky made it back to the cave an hour later, having cut the journey time in half, they caught a scent that made their blood turn to ice in their veins. It was musty and undeniably reptilian but it wasn’t theirs, it was more serpentine smelling than that. The scent smelled like it did enter the cave but it couldn’t have entered more than a few minutes before they got there. They could possibly still catch it in time. Please god let them get there in time. They switched to their smaller form quicker than they think they’d ever done before in their life and started sprinting down the tunnel. Please, please let them get there in time. They were panting heavily by the time they got to the cavern and they saw it slithering along the ground and amongst William’s scattered belongings. A basilisk, and a bulky one too, all muscle and sharp spine ridges running down it’s back. No wonder the abomination survived the winter, they thing was at least a hundred or more foot long solid mass of meat all wrapped in black scales with interlocking golden diamond patterns going down its sides and back like big badges of warning to those who saw it to stay away or be killed. It looked like it was searching for something, searching for William. Or maybe them. They didn’t know and they didn’t really care if it was looking for them. Right then they were looking for William before they tore that giant fucking snake to shreds, they needed him to be clear of any flying chunks of snake or any stray claw swipes. But when they did a quick scan of the cave they didn’t see a trace of him. What they did see was his sword lying by the pool of spring water, they saw a sword but no William. He would never drop his weapon at a time like this. The reality dawned on them and hit them like a ton of bricks. William wasn’t there. William was gone. That _thing_ got to him first. _It took their William from them._

Sky felt red hot rage turn their chest to fire and molten rock, nearly blinding them with it’s intensity. The pure force of their fury and pain and loss felt like it was more what made them switch to their larger form and less from deliberate thought. Once they were in their full size the snake seemed to finally notice them, it hissed at them and drew its body behind itself in a coil ready to be launched. Sky roared back, blasting it with a stream of fire only to discover that the beast’s hide was just as fireproof as theirs. It was forced to hide it’s face behind one of its coils but it emerged unscathed, launching at them with it’s fangs bared. Sky dodged the strike and landed a hard swipe to it’s head, knocking it off balance and onto the ground. They used the serpent’s temporary disorientation to their advantage, going to kill it while it was laid out on the floor. They saw everything with a red tint around the edges, it killed their William, it took him away from them. But the basilisk drew the rest of it’s body over and threw a coil around Sky’s shoulder like a living sash before they got to it’s throat. They let out a startled roar as the snake started constricting their shoulder and throwing more coils around their neck. They reared back on instinct in an attempt to get away, ending up with their back pressed to a wall and the snake tightening its coils around their neck in a headlock. They clawed at the snake’s body wrapped around their throat and they knew they were cutting through the scales and drawing blood but it seemed like the more they struggled the tighter the basilisk squeezed on their airway. Any cries of rage or desperation were cut off but the coils around their throat. The snake kept it’s head just out of the reach of their claws and teeth near the ground. It had a malevolent glint in it’s eyes as it looked up at them, it wasn’t going to bite them, it wanted to watch them choke to death. 

Their vision was starting to go black around the edges and gradually narrow down to a point, they were going to be killed by one of the same things that took the only two things they ever loved. A basilisk took their wing, then William, and now one was going to take their life. It seemed oddly fitting to them in a kind of sick, ironic way but maybe that was probably the oxygen deprivation talking. They figured it was a good way to pay for the mayhem they’d caused in the past. They found themself wishing in what they were sure were their last moments that all those fairytales humans had about paradises after life were real. Maybe they’d get to see William again that way. But then again they probably wouldn’t go to the same place he would. They had done too much to deserve any kind of paradise and he definitely did, he was one of the best people they’d ever known. 

Their vision had narrowed down to a single point on the ceiling of the cave they’d taken shelter in with him for two weeks, the cave they looked after William in when he was sick, held him, admired the man he’d become. Then they heard a few sounds that sounded very far away to them. The swish of a sword cutting through the air, a barking shout, a sickening squishing, crunching noise followed by several more of those sounds intermingled with a sharp, pained shriek that was cut off in the middle. The scaled coils around their neck convulsed a few times and then went completely slack and they were allowed to suck in lung fulls of air, which they would never take for granted again. The oxygen rushed back to their brain so quickly it hurt and they could see clearly again. 

They looked down to see that the snake had it’s head halfway chopped off, it’s eyes frozen wide in a now permanent surprised grimace and blood gushing from the gaping wound in it’s neck where the spine was severed. Then their eyes then settled on the person who delivered the killing blows to the snake. William. He stood with his blood drenched sword in his hands and he was soaking wet with water. Red spatters slowly starting to run down his chest, arms, and face along with the water. He was shaking and panting as he looked at what his work with a conflicted expression of rage and horror. He looked up at them and gave them an unsteady smile, “Sorry I waited ‘til the last minute there, you okay?” He said between heavy breaths.

They were seeing him but they weren’t really processing it like they should have. Their mind was still questioning whether or not that was really him, whether or not he was really there or if they were imagining it in some sort of cruel hallucination that their oxygen deprived brain had produced. Why was their vision so blurry? They didn’t care, they needed to see if he was really there. They didn’t even register that they were changing forms at first but they needed to get rid of that cumbersome large body so they could really get close and make _sure_ he was really there in front of them. They were walking towards him and he looked confused and concerned, “William?” Their voice was a harsh croak, their throat still trying to recover from being crushed but the pain in their neck and the bruises around their throat were momentarily forgotten. They tried to speak the best they could but they could only force out a few words at a time with the damage done to their throat and the lump that had formed there, “Thought that… It got you be… fore I got… Here. Didn’t… See you. Thought… You were… Gone. Thought… It took you… From me.” They choked out, they sounded pathetic but they didn’t care. They reached out and touched his face, cautiously like he might disappear if they weren’t careful. Why was their hand shaking? Oh yeah, they almost died just a few moments ago, that might be why. 

He looked up at them like they had suddenly grown a second arm, “Sky, are you... are you crying?” He asked in a whisper. They blinked and felt tears roll down their cheeks. Oh, they were crying for the first time in their life, or at least the first time that they could remember. They felt hands lightly grip their shoulders, steadying them enough to look back down at William’s face. His eyes were full of concern, concern for them, “Did I scare you that bad? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Sky! I just heard it coming and dropped my sword and hid in the deep part of the spring because all I could hear in my head was you saying that it would be stupid to put myself in danger and try to fight something that big! Please don’t cry! I-”

They cut him off mid babble by pulling them against them, holding him so close the both of them could barely breath. No matter how hard they tried to stop them the tears kept coming and their chest felt so tight their ribs might puncture their heart. “Thought I lost you.” They choked out in a hoarse whisper. They bent their head down to bury their face in the curve of his neck and they felt two wiry muscled arms wrap around their chest and William’s face press against their shoulder. They could feel the water and blood spatters soaking their clothes, and found that they couldn’t really find the time to give two shits. They were so happy that he was alive that they were even able to ignore the fact that he was shirtless save for that absolutely ridiculous damn chainmail bikini. He felt cold from being in the spring water, cold like a dead body. They felt another involuntary spike of fear tear through them. It was silly to be scared by something so simple as him being cold enough to feel like he was dead, they knew it was. But still, they just felt the immediate instinct to hold him until he was warm again.

There was a muffled voice against their collarbone, “Not that this isn’t nice, but you’re kind of crushing my lungs here, Sky.” They felt rather than heard his laugh after he spoke, him laughing was starting to become one of their favorite sounds. 

Sky pulled away a little to look at him and loosened their grip around him, “Sorry boy, it’s just good to know you’re still here.” They rasped, they were starting to be able to gradually speak more easily but they were fairly sure that the deep bruise around their neck that they were beginning to feel meant that they would sound like they were addicted to smoking a tobacco pipe for a while more. They pressed their forehead to William’s and let out a sigh of content mixed with relief.

William reached up and wiped some of the moisture from Sky’s cheeks with his thumbs and his palms cupping their jaw before meeting their eyes. Then he got a strange look on his eyes and his smile went away, replaced by that expression they couldn’t read. He started leaning in and closed his eyes before he pressed his lips to theirs. Sky froze, not knowing how to react to… Whatever it is he was doing. Huh, so that whole bizarre lip touching gesture really was some kind of human thing. He worked their lips in a strange pattern with his own and it actually felt sort of good, despite how weird of a gesture it was. When he pulled back he looked at them for a second in a way that reminded them of how they looked at him while he was working out and it made them have to hold back a little shiver. Okay, so maybe William wasn’t so innocent as they’d liked to have thought. But they still didn’t know what the thing he just did meant. Their confused expression must have brought him back to reality a bit because it seemed like that hungry look he had disappeared in the blink of an eye. He looked scared now, as well as questioning, “What? Was that not okay?” He inquired quietly.

They shrugged, “Yeah, I guess it was. I just have no idea what that thing you just did was. Some kind of human thing? I remember seeing a couple of humans doing it once but I don’t know what it means or if it means anything.” They explained.

William covered his face with his hands and groaned, “Shit, I didn’t know that kissing wasn’t a thing with dragons.” He sighed and took his hands away from his face to look back up at them, his face was red and they didn’t know if it was from embarrassment or frustration. They were thinking it was more from embarrassment. “It’s just kind of… well, it’s just sort of a…” He paused for a moment and waved his hands around in that way he did when he was trying to find the right words to use to explain what he was thinking, “I guess humans do it to… To express strong affection. It’s usually done between people who are in, uh… Romantic relationships, I guess.” He finished with a tone of hesitance, he wasn’t meeting their eyes save for a few fleeting glances to see Sky’s expression. 

Oh. _Oh._ The realization hit them like a punch to the head. That was William proposing a romantic relationship to them. Their head was spinning and now they couldn’t really blame it on the lack of oxygen to the brain. They cleared their throat of the lump that had inexplicably formed there and did their best to form a good response, “Well, romance or relationships aren’t usually done with dragons. Or kissing.” As soon as the words left their mouth William visibly deflated, just seeing him look so hurt made them want to hug him again. They stopped him as he opened his mouth to respond, “ _But_ , despite that I don’t really see why I can’t at least try those things, give them a shot so to speak. I, um… I feel like I might be willing to try those things... With you. If you’ll allow me.” Their voice was as soft as it could get with how gravely it was at the moment, they tried to keep their tone even but it was a little hard when it felt like their stomach was flipping itself upside down and back again.

For a second William just stared at them, dumbfounded. Then his face lit up with a wide grin and he bounced on his heals a few times like an excited puppy about to piss itself. He flung his arms around their neck and pulled them down into another kiss. This time it wasn’t so slow as before, it was messy, kind of desperate, and entirely odd but incredible at the same time in ways they couldn’t really put into words. They froze up again for a second before they closed their eyes and did their best to mimic what he was doing, it ended up kind of half assed and sloppy but they tried to convince themself that it was good for a first try. Being in their heat was making it hard to avoid thoughts of wanting to push him down and get those wet pants off of him. They guessed they didn’t really need to avoid those thoughts anymore given the conversation they just had but they didn’t want to scare him off by forcing themself on him. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t indulge just a little bit. They hooked their arm around his waist and pulled him closer, tilting their head to the right to deepen the kiss more. William made a soft, pleased noise in the back of his throat but after a little while more he had to pull away to breath. Sky moved on to kissing the line of his jaw and his neck, they heard William let out a breathless laugh. He squirmed a little in their grip, “I don’t mean to ruin the mood, but there’s a big ass snake currently bleeding out on the cave floor a few feet away from us.” He informed them, his voice bubbled with mirth but said big ass snake bleeding out on the floor was a problem that was gradually getting worse. 

Sky made a confused grunt, having all but forgotten about the giant serpent’s dead body behind them. But the sharp, metallic scent of blood in their nose gave them the full reminder that, yep, the basilisk was making a gross mess all over the rock and dirt floor of the cave. They pulled away from his neck with a frustrated huff, lifting their foot and glaring at the sticky puddle of dark red forming under their feet. Turning back to William they had already come up with a good idea for how to take care of the body of the large and impressively meaty snake. “I’m going to have to take it outside to skin it and gut it. In the meantime you can wash that blood off of you and your sword and get changed.” They instructed.

William made a face, “Ewww!~ Why would we want to eat a snake? And a snake that just tried to kill you, too.” He whined at them.

They rolled their eyes back at him, “We would want to eat the snake because that thing has enough meat on it to last a month between the both of us. Plus, how is a basilisk any more gross than anything else we’ve eaten? You’ve had cockatrice meat before a couple times and you loved that, how was that any different?” They asked, amused.

William shrugged, “I dunno, but it is different if you think about it. A cockatrice is a chicken snake. This is just a snake. An _evil_ snake.” He finished, throwing a glare around Sky’s shoulder to the aforementioned “evil snake”. 

They chuckled and shook their head, “Trust me, it’ll make for some good food and we can figure out what to do with the rest of it too. I’m sure you can find a way to make things from the bones and teeth. Hell, maybe even the organs can be used in some way. Beggars can’t be choosers, William.” They leaned down to give him one last, chaste kiss on the lips before they walked over to the snake’s tail, “Now go wash that blood off, who knows what kind of diseases this thing carries.” They said as they spitefully kicked the snake’s limp body.

William sighed and reluctantly started to head back over to the pool of water he had been hiding for his life in just a few minutes ago, starting to shiver just a little now that he didn’t have an adrenaline rush or Sky’s embrace to keep him warm. Sky grabbed the end of the basilisk’s tail and started to drag it over to the entrance of the cave, glancing over their shoulder in the most nonchalant manner they could manage to get a quick glimpse of William’s ass as he was taking off his soaked pants. They left with a smirk on their face as they dragged the serpent out of their temporary home to skin it, the snake’s half severed head knocking against the right side of the stone archway as it was pulled into the tunnel with a red trail forming behind it as it went.


	3. Ereptile Dysfunction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sky never got a "Your Body and You!" pamphlet as a young lizard. It doesn't work out in their favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a short chapter but trust me when I say I had to split the smutty part into two chapters.

It took a good couple of hours to get the snake skinned, gutted, and to cut the meat from the bones. But it was worth it for the hundreds of pounds of meat they got off of the body. Sky could make a cloak from the hide for William once it was dried and treated, and the bones, fangs, and organs could be made into tools and weapons for him. Sewing needles from the smaller teeth, knives made from carved and sharpened ribs, axes carved from the vertebrae, water pouches from the bladder, and so on. They listed off more and more things to make from the remains of the snake as they worked and realized that the two of them would be fairly busy for the next two months until spring came. 

But no matter how hard they tried to focus they kept getting distracted by the memory of getting a fleeting glimpse of William’s naked body and the feeling of kissing him, and every time they did recall those memories they felt like their crotch was a bruise as fresh and painful as the one around their neck. They didn’t know why it was affecting them so much, they had seen William naked before when he was bathing and they put their mouth on his when he was sick to give him that tea. But now those memories worked against Sky and made it hard to keep their mind clear. It was uncomfortable and they had to take a deep breath to steady themself again as they were dragging in the cut up meat, bones, and drained organs they decided to keep back into the cave to be dried over the fire or packed in snow in the corner of the cave to keep them fresh. They had placed it all on the long skin of the snake and dragged it behind them like an odd gore train through the tunnel, they didn’t even want to try putting it all in a makeshift bag made from the snake skin and trying to stuff it into the cave in one big wad. 

They reached the cavern again to find William trying to find a way to clean up the charred logs that they hadn’t realized got knocked out of the fire in the earlier skirmish with the snake that was now mincemeat. He was standing over one of the ones that was still burning with his hands on his hips, his hair still slightly damp on the ends and now fully dressed in one of his more comfortable shirts and a dry pair of pants that ended just under the knee. He turned when he heard the sound of the dragging snake hide laden with meat and bones being brought into the cave. He grinned at Sky and bounded over to them, “That’s a helluva lot of snake meat! You weren’t kidding when you said it’d last us a month or more. I was thinking that at least half of it was going to be throw away parts.” He prattled in an excited manner, looking at the potential feast his kill had produced.

Sky grunted in response to him and continued to take the hide to the right wall where they laid it parallel to the rock face, William following behind the entire time and looking over what parts of the snake they brought back. Then they went about laying the hunks of meat either in the coldest shadows of the back of the cave to be packed in snow later or on large rocks and on a wooden rack above the fire in long strips to dry it. It took about another hour and William chattered in their ear the whole time as they worked, but he never offered help once, the turd. After that they had to wash off the blood from their hands in the spring from moving around the huge chunks of meat, discarding their jacket with dried blood crusted on the sleeves and washing up to their elbows. As they stood up after they were satisfied with how clean their hands and arms were they felt a pair of lithe, strong arms wrap around their middle from behind them. William’s face nestled in between the top of their shoulder blades and they felt him inhale their scent and let out a happy hum. They chuckled and tried to look over their shoulder at him, “What are you doing now boy?” They rumbled.

William shrugged, “Doing whatever the hell I want.” He replied, leaning up on his tip toes to kiss the nape of their neck. Or at least he tried to but with Sky’s long ponytail in the way he ended up having to spit out more than a couple green hairs. This got another, louder laugh out of Sky who turned around in his embrace to face him, ignoring the stirring in their loins from the close contact with him and the kiss on the back of their neck. He rested his forehead on their collarbone and they buried their face in his freshly washed hair. They stayed that way for a few minutes with him, enjoying being able to have a quiet moment with him after what the two of them had just been through. After a while William broke the silence, “Sky, are you going to have to wash that shirt? I think it still has some blood on it from messing with the basilisk chunks.” He Informed them while pulling back enough to see their blouse that was indeed stained with blood.

They looked down to confirm that the blood was there too and let out a frustrated groan, “I forgot about that, it takes a small extra dose of magic to repair and clean the clothes that I create on this form. It’s the same with adding more layers or shoes depending on the season, if I want to alter them I need to put in a little extra effort.” They explained, dragging their hand down their face. They really didn’t want to change into their larger form and back again just for a shirt, that would mean they would have to stop being in contact with William for a minute. They thought for a second as William inspected the mostly dried red patches, and they thought of a better idea than going through the hassle of switching forms. They untucked their blouse from their pants with a yank and started to pull it over their head, forcing William to let go of them for a moment. His eyes went wide and they saw his face turn red, “Um, Sky? What are you doing?” His voice cracked halfway through his question.

“What do you think I’m doing? I’m taking this damn thing off. I don’t feel like putting in the effort to fix it.” They said as their vision was momentarily blocked by their shirt lifting over their head. When they could see William’s face again he was about five shades darker red than he was before, all the way up to his ears, and his wide eyes were roaming over their bare chest and abdomen. “What, what is it?” They asked, wondering why he was so flustered all of a sudden. 

He put his hands on their stomach almost timidly, not meeting their eyes, “I, uh, I’ve just never seen you... shirtless before.” He mumbled.

They tried to ignore how his hands on their bare skin made it feel like the places he touched were on fire, “What do you mean? I’m pretty much naked a majority of the time when I’m in my larger form.” They pointed out.

He huffed and his hands balled into fists against their skin, “That’s not the same as this. I mean, it might not feel any different for you but it is for me, okay?” He rested his head back on their now bare collarbone in an attempt to hide his face from them. To William, seeing them shirtless like this was breathtaking and it embarrassed him just how much he wanted to run his hands over their darker skin, learn every dip and curve by touch alone. He thought it made him creepy and he thought that Sky would think he was weird for it. He couldn’t really think of them as a sexual being, they just seemed too stoic and serious for it. But they were beautiful without a shirt covering them, more than he could have ever imagined, which he had tried to do many a time while they weren’t in the cave with him or whenever they were in their smaller form and weren’t paying attention to him staring at them. He would never admit it but he often used a mental image of Sky’s face twisted into a mask of pleasure when he took care of his labido. He wasn’t proud of it but it helped him keep his cool when they looked at him with those piercing yellow eyes like he was their favorite thing in the whole world. Which Sky never realized they even did, but they did. Their chest was flat save for some muscle, they had toned abs and flared hips that their black pants rode low on. 

Sky sighed softly through their nose and shook their head at him, in their head they decided to just concede to the fact that humans were weird. Although they had been acting the same way about seeing him naked before, but they also had a reason for that. They figured that he was just nervous or something. They lifted his chin with their fingers and kissed him softly, wrapping their arm around his shoulders. They felt the tension built up in his muscles like coiled springs loosen and he started to kiss them back, his arms wrapping around their midsection again. When they parted for air this time William laughed quietly, “No offense but you kind of suck at this.” He teased.

Sky poked under his ribs, being sure to be careful with their claws, making him squeal and squirm in their grip, “Practice makes perfect, shut up.” They retorted dryly, going back to kissing him before he could make any smart ass remarks back at them. William laughed into the kiss a little before he finally settled down again, wrapping his arms around their neck this time. They kissed like that for a while more, breaking apart for air every once in a while, during which time Sky would switch to kissing his neck, but other than that just indulging for the moment. They thought it was a little weird, at first, when he stuck his tongue in their mouth and explored but they decided to go with it. Besides, it felt good in a sort of weird way and the sounds they got from William when they reciprocated were well worth the initial, slight discomfort. 

The longer they continued, the more fuzzy Sky’s head was getting with the feeling and they lost their hold over their own instincts. Before they knew it William had his legs hiked up over around their waist and they had their hand holding him up by his ass, which they had no recollection of doing. They also found that they didn’t care that they didn’t remember how it happened, they were just damn grateful that it did. After that was a blur of movement and then they had his back pressed against a wall. When he broke away for air they let out a growl from deep in their throat and started to suck a dark hickey into the pale skin of his neck, feeling the need to visually mark him. He was panting and he whimpered every once in a while when their teeth scraped his skin, but other than that he definitely wasn’t complaining. That was until Sky rolled their hips against his in an attempt to get some relief from the burning, constricted feeling they had building, forcing a sharp, stuttering gasp out of him.

The light pressure of his barely shaking hands balled into fists on their shoulders and his unsure, cracking voice broke them out of their haze, “U-um, wait, Sky.” They pulled back, leaving a strand of saliva connecting their lower lip to his neck for a second. Their pupils, which were usually just slits like a cat’s eye, were completely blown so that only a thin ring of gold could be seen around the disk of black. It took a second more for them to regain a full grasp of the situation. William had untied their hair, his own hair was a little messed up, and he had a dark purple mark on the side of his neck. He looked confused and more than a little surprised, they didn’t know by what though. But the more they thought the more things that they could have done wrong started to pop into their head. Shit. Shit shit _shit_. 

“What is it? Did I hurt you or something? Was that going too far?” They asked, terrified that they’d just screwed everything up before anything had even had a chance to start.

He blinked and looked away, “No, it was, uh… it was fine, I’m fine, I mean. I was just… Well I…” He pressed his forehead to their shoulder, hiding his face from them, “I was just not expecting that from you. At all.” He sounded almost shaken, but more like he was just rattled from his standing on a previous belief and was trying to reevaluate things rather than like he was traumatized or violated. 

Now it was their turn to be confused. “What do you mean?” They asked.

He chewed the inside of his cheek, evaluating how he should answer that question, “Well, you just kind of seem… Too serious for it? I guess? It’s hard to explain but you just never seemed like the type of person to lose their cool and do something out of the blue like that. I guess I was kind of expecting a warning or something from you.” He explained, still not looking them in the eyes.

Sky felt their heart sink, they did do something wrong. They felt their own ears droop slightly and they looked down in shame. They should have asked for permission before doing that or at least let him make the first move. “I’m sorry, William. It wont happen again, I promise.” They said like a scolded child, going to let him stand on his own by starting to unwrap his legs from around their waist.

But as soon as they started to try and let him down, he tightened his grip around their neck, careful of their bruises, and midsection with his arms and legs. “No no, it wasn’t bad! You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I guess it just kind of… Took me off guard, I guess.” His face grew more and more flushed as he spoke.

Sky let out a small sigh of relief and rested their forehead against his, “Well, I still didn’t ask for permission to do something like that. I’m just not very used to… Well, wanting someone, for lack of a better way to phrase it.” They explained, guessing that now was as good a time as any to tell him about their heat if he decided to ask. They just felt like he deserved to know.

William finally looked them in the eye again, that childish curiosity he always seemed to have lying under the surface flickering in his eyes, “You mean you’ve never felt any kind of attraction for anyone before? Does it only happen with dragons when you’re friends with someone first?” He asked them.

They laughed softly, “God no that isn’t how it works, the entire species would have gone extinct by now if that were the case. No, we have heat cycles. I happened to have started my first heat cycle about two and a half weeks ago. I apologize for not telling you sooner but I wasn’t exactly expecting it to be this… Hard to deal with. It happens about every five hundred years and it doesn’t go away easily. We aren’t very romantic creatures by nature so it’s mostly a system based on ‘find another dragon, do your business, and get out of their life before they decide you’re bothering them and kill you’. If there was any other dragon who actually went through the trouble of forming a relationship with someone before deciding to mate with them, I’ve never heard of them.” They informed him.

William looked thoughtful for a moment, “You’re in heat? So, what, you’re pretty much, like, horny all the time or something?” He inquired in a very serious manner.

Sky shook their head with an exasperated sigh, “Yes William, thank you for summing that up in the most graceful manner possible, well done.” They said sarcastically.

He paused and hummed thoughtfully, “You know that I could help you… Take care of that right?” He said almost casually save for some minor hesitance in his tone. Well they’d be damned if that wasn’t more unexpected than seeing a fucking phoenix taking a leisurely swim in the ocean.

They looked back at his face and saw that he was serious about that. Sure he looked nervous and a little embarrassed about what he’d just suggested, red up to his ears and his eyes flitting over their face unsurely like he was searching for any signs of a negative reaction from them. But other than that there were no signs that he was even remotely kidding about what he’d just said to them. “William, you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. You don’t have to feel like you have to do anything with me just because I happen to be in my heat.” They stated. 

William rolled his eyes at them and groaned in annoyance, “Oh my god, you stupid fucking lizard! I’m trying to tell you that _I. want. to. fuck. you_! Do you think I would have my legs wrapped around your waist like a class A professional goddamn dick rider after we pretty much just tongue fucked each other’s mouths for, like, what? Two full minutes if I didn’t want to do anything with you?!” After he’d said all that he seemed to finally gain a sense for what he had just let fly out of his mouth and pinched his lips shut in a straight line.

Sky… Very honestly had no idea how to respond to that. At all. “Um, I-” They started but any words they had in their head died in their throat, they weren’t really one to get nervous or be rendered speechless but it seemed like William was able to do that to them. Just hearing him say that he actually wanted them like they did him made them feel like their head was stuffed with cotton. They were pretty sure it was because half the blood in their body just made a simultaneous mad dash straight to their genitals.

He sighed and placed his hand on their cheek, drawing their attention back to him instead of some randomly chosen point on the running water in the stream next to them. He looked like he was a bundle of nerves but he seemed to be pushing himself past it, for whose sake they weren’t sure. “Let’s just stop talking because I’m pretty sure that one of us is going to screw this up if we don’t just shut up.” He said matter-o-factly. They couldn’t do much other than nod in agreement before his mouth was back on theirs, at this point it felt like coming home. Before long they were back in their previous frenzied state but this time they knew that there was a promise behind their actions. It just felt different, more heated. It wasn’t just kissing because they could anymore, it was building up to something that would hopefully be better. 

This time when they rocked their hips against his he didn’t push away or sound panicked, he whimpered into their kiss and balled his hands into fists against their back like he was trying to pull them closer instead. They couldn’t hear his noises well enough with their mouth still on his so they moved to suck more marks onto his neck, allowing him to gasp and moan freely. They felt something hard rubbing against them and figured that must have been whatever that sad sea creature looking thing attached to his crotch was. Huh, so that’s what it did when he was turned on. After a minute or two of grinding on him and sucking and biting at his neck, he had several dark red and purple marks on his skin, much smaller than the other one they’d placed just under his jaw earlier but still just as vivid and easy to see.

William tried to hold back and muffle his voice out of embarrassment but since Sky’s ear was right by his mouth they could hear every sound he made and it egged them on. They broke away from his neck once they were satisfied with how thoroughly they marked him and pressed their forehead to his. His lips were swollen from kissing and from him biting them in an attempt to muffle his own soft cries. They rocked their hips in a more frantic rhythm against the hard bulge in his pants and forced him to let out a loud whine he couldn’t contain and they returned it with a low growl. But they felt like something wasn’t happening for them that was supposed to be.

They were starting to get frustrated and desperate, no matter how much friction they got it seemed like their sheath just refused to open and let their cock out of it’s confines. It _hurt_. Nobody had ever told them that would happen, they had no idea what they were supposed to do about it. The only reason they had learned about their heat was because Alder had taught them how to read in order to make them read a book about their own species. He was shocked when he asked them various things about dragons as a species and their only answer was “I don’t know” to all of them. Was something wrong with them? They were pulled from their thoughts when they heard William talking, “Y-you... Okay? You look like you’re... I-in pain or something. And I don’t… Feel much going on down there with you.” His voice was shaking and he had to speak between trying to catch his breath.

Sky buried their face in the curve of his neck and slowed their hips to a stop with a pained groan, “I don’t know, it _fucking... hurts_ and I don’t know why.” They growled, panting from exertion like William was. 

He stroked their hair and guided their face out from his neck to look him in the eye, “What’s wrong? What do you want me to do?” He asked, obviously concerned even through his lust driven haze that made his voice low and raspy and his heart beat erratic. 

They took a deep breath through their nose and let out a stuttering exhale, “I don’t know. I just know that something’s wrong.” They answered. They sounded pathetic and they felt like shit for interrupting something that William was enjoying.

William sighed and furrowed his eyebrows, caressing just under their eye with his thumb while he contemplated what to do next. “Let’s go to my bed,” He suggested, “I’ll fix it.”


	4. How to Bang Your Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the chapter with unnecessarily drawn out porn.

“And just how the hell are you going to do that?” They snapped, the pain of a still trapped, aching dick starting to wear on their nerves.

William just rolled his eyes at them and started to unhook his legs from around them to lower himself onto the floor. At first he was a little shaky on his feet but once he had his bearings again he took them by the hand and lead them to his sleeping mat, which was actually more the both of their sleeping mat at that point seeing how many nights they’d slept together on it. He made them sit down in front of them and crouched in between their legs, reaching for the button on their pants, “Can I…?” They nodded their consent, if he could do anything to try and make the ache stop they would welcome it. He undid their pants and yanking them off of them in one swift movement. He seemed surprised by what he saw, but not disgusted or horrified. “Hm, looks just like a human girl’s usual set up.” He mumbled to himself. What he could see was just a slit, indeed like a human female, accept they were completely naturally hairless and the spot just about where the slit started was a bit more puffy looking than what he was used to. Everything he could see was either bright red, damp with precum, or both. 

He went to touch them, just to explore and see what happened, and they flinched as soon as he pressed his fingers against where he would commonly find a clitoris in a human woman. They let out a sharp hiss of pain and started to shake, gripping at the blankets which most certainly would now have holes in them from their claws. He leaned over to their face and shooshed them soothingly while stroking their hair with the hand that wasn’t busy. He guided them to lay down so he could reach everything and tried to concentrate on what he was doing, feeling for any obvious problems even though he pretty much knew nothing about how they worked below the belt. He kept rubbing at that spot until he felt something strange, like something small was poking out of Sky.

It then occurred to him that they might be a bit more like a lizard than he thought. They did have a dick, it was just retractable. But for some reason it just wasn’t willing to come out. He could feel the edges of the place where it was trying to come out around the tip of their… Dick? Maybe? But it felt like it was drawn tight and it twitched like the muscles were spasming. He hummed thoughtfully and started to back up, getting on his hands and knees and then onto his stomach so that he was eye level with their… Weird dragon junk. They seemed to stop breathing altogether as soon as they saw that he was moving lower and propped themself up on their elbow, “William, what the hell are you doing?” They asked warily. They placed their hand on his head so that they could yank him back if they needed to, holding themself up with the muscles in their stomach. 

He looked up at them and gave them a reassuring grin while he ran his hand over their hip in an attempt to calm them, “Don’t worry, I told you I’m going to fix it! Besides, I’ve done something kind of like this before so I have an idea of what I’m doing.” He chirped up at them cheerfully.

Sky stopped, their demeanor switching and the pain momentarily forgotten, “What? What do you mean you’ve done this before?” They asked, feeling an unintentional twinge of jealousy.

William raised an eyebrow at them, “Well... I’m almost 20 now and the legal age of consent is 16 in the Northern Kingdoms so I had some… Um, experiences before I met you. I would go into detail but I don’t think now is really the time, seeing that I pretty much have my face in your crotch. Sorry for bringing it up in the first place.” He laughed at his own folly like this was just like any other awkward conversation they’d had together. Then he paused, “Wait, haven’t you done anything like this before?” He asked, not accusing or suspicious but just curious as always.

“This is my first heat so, no, I haven’t.” They said with a shrug.

He smiled and kissed their thigh, “Then I’ll try to make this as good as I can for you! Wouldn’t want your first time to be disappointing.” He wiggled forward a little bit and acted before they could respond to what he’d said. He licked from where what he thought of as their vulva started, for lack of better vocabulary for the anatomy of their species, all the way up to where he felt that little nub coming out of them. Their breath hitched and they felt like they’d just been electrocuted, but in a good way, if that were even possible. He swirled his tongue around the little protrusion and then moved to just below it to lave over the lips of their entrance, flicking the tip of the muscle just into them in a way that was almost cruelly teasing before going back to working over the nub. They let out an unrestrained groan and their hips twitched up towards his face in an attempt to get more of anything of what he was doing. It still hurt but at least what he was doing helped draw their attention away from it.

Then he did something that brought them right back to paying full attention to how uncomfortable their cock was stuck in their sheath, trying to get out but something stopping it. He slid his tongue along next to the tip of them and flicked it at the edge of their sheath opening, trying to get it to open more. They grunted in pain and tugged his hair a little, “Fuck! That hurt.” They growled at him.

He caressed the more raised edge of their hip bone with his thumb like he was trying to sooth them and pulled back, looking like he just figured out a puzzle, “Ah-ha! So that’s what’s wrong.” He looked up at them sympathetically, “I know this might feel kind of weird but you have to relax, Sky. I think I might know how to help now but I need you to just focus on what feels good for now, okay?” He explained, kissing their thigh a few more times while he waited for their answer.

Sky sighed, they had an idea about what he was going to do and they knew it would most likely end well for the both of them but that didn’t mean they were any less hesitant. “Fine, just do what you have to do.” They grumbled, laying their head back against the comfortable firmness of what they were now starting to consider both William’s and their bed. They let out a gasp as William went back to what he was doing and did their best to do as they were told. They’d never even tried touching themselves before so the feeling of a tongue exploring them was a little odd but it still felt damn good. He payed some attention to the end of their dick trying to escape its confines but moved down to where they opened once he realized that direct contact wasn’t exactly helping as much as he figured it would. This time when his tongue flicked into them it went a whole lot deeper than last time and started stimulating them in ways that made their thighs shake and their back arch a little off the mat. He fucked them with his tongue until they were a pliable, moaning mess laid out on the blankets. He pulled back to breathe and remind them to relax every once in a while, his hot breath gusting over them and providing them with mild stimulation when his tongue wasn’t doing wonderful things to them. They felt him flick his tongue over the small protrusion, which had almost escaped their mind entirely until he stopped eating them out. They heard him make a noise of mild perplexity and slight frustration as he pulled away, his brows drawn a little together. They growled at him, “Why did you stop?”

William smiled reassuringly at them, “Don’t worry, it’s just not going as quickly as I thought it would. Just relax and keep focussing on what feels good, I’m gonna try something.” He assured them.

Sky wanted to smack him, “Boy, if you tell me to relax one more fucking time I’m going to put my pants back on and-” William made them stop mid sentence by slipping a finger into them and lightly sucking on the small tip of their cock. He moved his finger in and out of them for a second or two, which was nice but not quite enough stimulation for them, before he slipped a second one in alongside the first. They made soft groans at first which became louder when he curved his fingers a little and found a spot in them that made spots of white flash in their vision. He alternated between swirling his tongue around what he could get of their dick and lightly sucking it, making them throw their head back and moan aloud in a pitch they didn’t even think they could get to with their voice. It was when they were really starting to enjoy what he was doing when they felt the entrance to their sheath start to sting as their cock finally started to make its way out. It made them grunt and grab onto the blankets under them in a death grip, they started to think that they liked it better when the stupid appendage wasn’t cooperating. William responded by running his available hand over one of their thighs, hitting the spot inside them with his fingers that made them claw at the blankets, and sucking on the slowly emerging length of their cock. He never took his mouth off of them completely once nor did he stop making them cry out with his fingers while their sheath finally opened up. 

Once it was done they realized two things, the first being that William obviously had no gag reflex to speak of because he currently had all of them in his mouth down to the base, and the second being that it was a damn good thing that he had done this before. If William was as much as an inexperienced virgin as them the two of them would probably have given up by this point. The feeling was more intense than they anything they’d ever felt, all white hot pleasure and the soft feeling of his tongue and him swallowing around them. The most they could do was pant and groan, trying to keep their hips still so they wouldn’t discourage him at all, they just wanted him to keep doing whatever it was he was doing. But the fun was spoiled for them when he pulled off of them with a wet pop noise and got his first real look at their now exposed dick for the first time. He froze, looking down at them with a blank expression until he unexpectedly burst into hysterical laughter, rolling onto his side and burying his face in their hip. 

They didn’t know what he was laughing at, they kind of liked how they looked now that it was fully exposed for the first time. It was longer than William’s was by a couple inches and twice as thick at the base, it basically looked like a smooth, soft tentacle with a mind of it’s own. It was tapered and tended to move on it’s own accord, waving around and curling on itself in the air like it was searching for William’s mouth. It was self lubricating from lines of pores going down both sides of it, which was sure to help things along. But their favorite feature was that it was a beautiful shade of vibrant sky blue the same color as their underbelly in their larger form, which happened to be their favorite color. It had a slightly purple tint on the tip and underside where it was flushed with blood. 

They honestly didn’t know what was so funny. Sky started to close their legs, beginning to feel self conscious and a little like kicking him off the mat to deal with their urges themself. They jostled him by bucking their hip, “Just what the hell do you find so hilarious about me?” They growled threateningly. 

William managed to catch his breath long enough to form a mostly coherent sentence, “Holy shit your weird tentacle dick is _bright fucking blue_ , I can’t, I fucking-!” He wheezed and dissolved into another fit of giggles in their lap like he was a nine year-old who heard his friend whisper the word “penis” into his ear. 

They stared into space, thinking, plotting. They could boot his sorry ass into the snow and deal with things themself, no problem. They didn’t need a man to please them, no matter how good he happened to be with his tongue and his fingers. They looked back down at him with a look that could freeze children playing outside on a hot summer day right as he looked up at their face. Suddenly their blue dick wasn’t all that funny anymore. He was lucky they were so damn horny they’d hump a rock at this point or he’d have been left outside to freeze. “Strip and get on your hands and knees.” They demanded in a deadpan tone.

His eyes went wide and his face turned bright red as his Adam’s apple bobbed with an audible gulp. He sat up as he babbled at them, “Um, hey, I-I was just kinda surprised because… I just… It... I’m so sorry, I swear to god I wont laugh at your weird fluorescent blue lizard junk again.” He looked equal parts terrified and aroused, maybe a little more terrified though, and they couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilt go through their chest. 

They wrapped their arm around his shoulders and kissed his forehead before they moved to his mouth, kissing him slowly and sweetly. Sky could taste a tang in his mouth that must have been themself but they didn’t really mind. They pulled back to press their forehead to his and looked into his eyes, “Calm down, boy. I’m sorry if I scared you, you don’t have to be on bottom if you don’t want to be.” They reassured him, rubbing circles into his shoulder blade with their thumb.

William sighed, with equal parts relief and content, “It’s okay, you just kind of startled me there. I, uh… I’m actually fine with being on bottom. From what I’ve heard it’s supposed to be pretty… Um, well, satisfactory, I guess?” He stammered. 

Sky chuckled quietly, for someone who just deep throated their tentacle cock he sure was nervous when it came to saying that anal was supposed to feel good for human males. They weren’t a complete idiot when it came to human anatomy, they had asked him a few questions about it the first time they saw him bathe and found out that humans didn’t come with both sets of equipment like dragons did, so to speak. So they were already well aware that him bottoming meant that he would be taking it up the ass, an idea that was completely foreign to them but if it felt good for him they’d do it. “Alright, now get out of your clothes before my dick decides to go back into hiding, will you?” They instructed, poking him in the side as he giggled and scooted back to have more room to undress. He grabbed a rag from his bag next to his bed and quickly wiped off Sky’s come from his fingers, tossing it away before grabbing the hem of his shirt and lifting it over his head. It was like watching someone unwrap a present. He looked even better when he was undressing from the front and now they could feel free to enjoy without being incredibly creepy. They watched him with a small smile on their face and the blue appendage between their legs curling on itself in a reflection of their own anticipation. That was until they saw that he still had on that _stupid. Fucking. Bikini._

God damnit.

God _fucking_ damnit.

He managed to wiggle out of his pants before he noticed them scowling intensely at the chainmail on his chest like a minotaur looking at a red cape swishing in front of it in an attempt to get it to charge. He stopped before he went to take off the bikini bottoms to get off his boxers, “Um, Sky, you feeling okay? You look really pissed off… And your dick looks offended, if that’s even possible. What’d I do now?” What he meant by their dick looking “offended” was that it had plastered itself flat against their lower abdomen and stopped moving entirely, the very image of what would think a highly betrayed octopus appendage would look like if one ever were to exist. 

“Take off the bikini and give it to me.” They growled, never taking their eyes off of that silver and gold eye sore. When he looked more skeptical than compliant they added a delayed “ _Please_.” to the end of their command.

William looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t bother before he reached behind his back to untie the straps and let the thin, lacy completely useless contraption fall from his shoulders. He wiggled out of the bottoms next and begrudgingly slapped them into Sky’s outstretched hand. Sky glared at the ostentatious disaster for a second more before doing what they should have long ago. They balled it up in their fist and chucked it over the distance between the bed and the bonfire, the glittering abomination landing square in the flames. William shoved at their shoulder to draw their attention back to him, “What the hell! That shit was enchanted! It saved my life!” He griped at them, looking fairly pissed.

“It was an eyesore and a turn off.” They retorted dryly.

William groaned in annoyance and rolled his eyes, “You know, there are people that actually _like_ when their lover dresses in something lacy and enticing under their clothes.” He grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. Seeing him try to pout when he was still half hard in his boxers was almost enough to make Sky laugh but they were sure they’d be left to deal with their impulses by themself if they did. 

“Well, once we get to a city with a market that sells such things I’ll be glad to help you pick something out that actually suits you and doesn’t look like a tacky joke gift.” They offered, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, which made the corners of his mouth twitch up a little like he was hiding a smile. They sighed and pressed their face into the soft hair at his temple to breath in his scent. His hair was getting long, what used to be short blonde curls and cowlicks were now almost forming full ringlets. “Do you know how many times I tried to oggle you with your shirt off and that thing ruined the mood completely? It was incredibly rude, I can tell you that much.” They admitted. 

William let out a burst of unrestrained laughter at their confession and slumped up against them, giggling into their shoulder in fits and starts. “Holy shit, and to think that I thought that I was the more perverse one out of the two of us.” He snickered. They traced nonsensical patterns into his back until he stopped laughing, they knew that part of his lasting fit of the giggles was nerves making their way to the surface and it was best just to let him get it out of his system. In the meantime their dick was still very much unsheathed and wriggling impatiently in between the two of them.

They kissed his temple and gave one last content sigh before pulling away to look at his face again, “Do you still want to do this? I’d be fine with taking care of it myself if you’re not wanting to go through with it.” Sky said, toying with one of his curls as they spoke.

This seemed to remind William of what they were going to do of the first place instead of simply hugging and cracking slightly inappropriate jokes. He took a deep breath that came out a bit shaky on the exhale, “Yeah, I still want to do this.” He assured them. He looked up at them and he had that damn mischievous look in his eyes that only meant that there was either a pun or a dirty joke coming. And of course they were right. “So you mentioned something about wanting to do it doggy style?” He waggled his eyebrows at them suggestively. 

It was enough to make them slap a hand over their face and shake their head at him. “Yes, so that you can’t make that face at me while I’m fucking you. Take your underclothes off you damn vexation.” They tried to deadpan only to fail and have a small amount of laughter seep into their voice. William snickered as he wiggled out of his loose undershorts that were sewn from pieces of scrap cloth by his mother. 

It always confused Sky why he had that patch of hair above his dick that trailed up and faded into peach fuzz just before it reached his belly button. And that weird dangly, squishy looking thing hanging just below his cock was confusing too but they didn’t really feel like playing twenty questions about human anatomy at the moment. Instead they gingerly wrapped their fingers around his dick and gave it a slow stroke, feeling it get stiffer in their hand. William let out a gasp and bit his lower lip, wrapping his arms around their shoulders, “You can be a little rougher than that, it won't break.” He mumbled. They took his advice and gripped it more firmly while they stroked him a few more times, swiping their thumb over the tip to spread the bead of clear liquid that had formed there. He let out a stuttering moan and bucked his hips into their touch as they continued at a almost cruelly slow pace. Well fuck if that reaction didn’t send a jolt straight to their cock. But then again just about anything he could do or say would do that to them at that point, to be perfectly fair and honest. 

After giving him a slow kiss on the lips Sky looked into his lust hazed eyes, they gave the throbbing dick in their hand a firm squeeze which made made William jump and let out a mixture of a groan and a startled yelp. He gave them a glare that looked more like a childish pout, “You’re a fucking tease, you know that?” He complained.

The only sympathy he got was an eyeroll from Sky, “I wasn’t trying to get you off, boy, only get you back in the mood. Now come on, we’ll both be getting what we want as soon as you move your ass into a position I can fuck you in.” Their voice was almost a purr, it was surprisingly easy for them to sound confident even though their poor dick was almost tying itself in knots. It was a good thing William had seemingly decided not to be stubborn, he huffed in minor irritation before he flipped himself and made sure his knees and hands were comfortable. They took a moment to run their fingertips over his back as well as the curve of his ass and take in just how gorgeous he was like this. They shifted so that they were on their knees behind him, knocking their knees on the inside of his thighs to make him spread his legs a little wider. They gave him a quick kiss between his shoulderblades, “Alright, now what do you want me to do? I don’t exactly know how to prepare you or if I need to, I’m not exactly an expert here so I need you to tell me what you need.” They said, giving his hip a light squeeze in an attempt to reassure him. He was breathing a bit erratically like he was starting to get anxious. 

William thought for a second before he came to a conclusion on what to do, “U-um, well usually when it comes to things like this you have to use oil and… Uh, stretch things a little with your fingers before you get started. But you’re, um… You know i-is tapered, a lot more soft, and it looks like it kind of lubes itself up pretty well so I think we can skip that.” He explained, his voice cracked and wavered in a few places. 

They nodded, “I hope you’re right, boy. I’ll go slow but let me know if I need to stop so I don’t hurt you.” They rumbled. Sky took a deep breath and brought their cock closer to him so it could wriggle into the cleft of his ass, hissing involuntarily at the sudden sensation. They let it drag over his entrance lazily, sighing and feeling William shudder underneath them. He whimpered when the tip worked it’s way into him and outright groaned when it kept moving deeper into him. He was so tight and warm that it made Sky dizzy, even if they were pretty sure that even in their smaller form their body temperature was higher than his he just felt so _hot_. 

When they got about a third of the way in William told Sky to wait, which they did. In the meantime they left hickeys on the nape of his neck, shoulders, and back, whispering how good he was doing so far. They had to stop two more times to let him adjust but other than that he took them all the way to the base with relatively no complications or fuck ups on either of their parts. He had gone down from his hands to his elbows, his back curved in a way that made their instincts scream to mark him with their claws, tear him to pieces, claim him as theirs. He whimpered something about them hitting something that felt good in him. Their brain didn’t really process his words very well seeing that everything in them was being directed towards fucking him until he screamed. 

They did start out slow like they’d promised, pulling out until just the tip was in him before they pushed back in just as slowly. William’s entire body shook and he let out a long, low moan, his knuckles turning white as he grabbed the blankets in front of him. They kept a slow pace for a while, enjoying the pleasure that ran up and down their spine like sparks. It was like scratching an itch they couldn’t reach until then only better, like their entire body was letting out a deep sigh of relief at the release of built up tension and they wanted to savor every bit of it. William seemed to be more eager to pick up the pace, outright growling at them and rocking his hips back against theirs. The sudden sensation was enough to make them growl back at him in a more feral, animalistic way before they left a barely bleeding bite mark on his shoulder which made him shiver and cry out before they finally picked up the pace.

They dug their fingers and the tips of their claws into his hip, relishing in the way he let out cries of pleasure that he tried and failed to hold back with each possessive tug pulling him back onto them. Their cock lashed inside of them and they let out bestial sounding groans and growls. William started to babble nonsense at them, curses let out in gasps and sobbing pleas. What specifically it was he was begging for, they didn’t know. They bent themself over his arched back, breathing in the muskiness and heat coming off of his skin in thick waves. They felt like could have fucked him for the remainder of their long life and declared it a lifetime well spent at the end of it. Taking and giving pleasure for the carnal thrill and buzzing pleasure that made their head feel full of fog and their instincts take over where their thoughts had turned to senseless noise in their skull.

They felt a hot knot forming in their belly signalling that they were close to their climax, making them dig their claws a little deeper into his skin and drag short lines into his skin that leaked tiny beads of scarlet from them. William started to shake under them in a whole body quiver, moaning out their name, the name he gave them so many months ago, in a throaty chant while the snap of their hips against his grew more erratic. He turned his head to look over his shoulder at them, his expression was all vulnerability and desperation. They leaned down and less kissed him so much as they mashed their mouth against his in a desperate attempt to get closer, get more of _something_ to push them both just over the edge. He went rigid and then convulsed underneath them with his orgasm, keening against their lips in a high, reedy voice. Him squeezing down on them in his climax was enough to send them past their breaking point. They pressed their face into his neck and groaned low and load against his skin while they gave a few more hard thrusts into him. They released without pulling out and he whined weakly at them, the feeling most likely being an odd sensation.

Sky’s cock slipped back into its sheath, which made them hiss a little from the sudden stimulation while they were trying to come down from their climax. William collapsed into a boneless heap under them and they rolled onto their side to catch their breath as well, closing their eyes and basking in the new feeling of relief that replaced their former tension. William reached a hand out and loosely laced his fingers with theirs but they noticed that his hand was trembling in theirs. They glanced over to see that he was shivering, slightly more so in his legs which would sometimes twitch sharply. Immediate concern flared up in them, forcing them out of their post sex haze of warmth and laziness. They wrapped their arms around him and dragged him against their chest, “William? Are you alright? Did I hurt you?” They worried, trying to get a look at his face and moving golden curls from his forehead where they stuck with to the sweat on his brow.

William turned his head to meet their concerned look, at least partially, and he mostly just looked sated and very ready to sleep. “Yeah… I’m fine, that was just… A little intense is all.” He explained between having to pause momentarily to breathe. He rolled over in their arms to face them, lazily and kind of sloppily kissing the nearest patch of dark skin, which happened to be the dip between their collar bones.

Sky sighed and resigned to relax for a while with him before they needed to inevitably had to drag William’s limp carcass out of bed to get cleaned up. The bite on his shoulder and the claw marks on his hip were still bleeding lightly, not to mention his ass was starting to leak their cum and his own was streaked across his belly and on the blanket under the two of them. The blanket would need to be washed too. In the meantime they traced little nonsensical patterns into his back with their fingertips and listened to him breath while their heartbeat slowed down again. 

But of course William just had to ruin the nice, relaxing moment, “Hey Sky, since you’re a dragon does that make this beastiality?” He inquired softly with genuine curiosity.

They let out an exasperated groan in reply, “Please stop talking, you’re ruining the afterglow.”

“No but seriously, do you think I would, like, get burned at the stake for this or something?”

“Well you’re going to get lit of fire one way or another if you don’t shut your mouth.”

“It’s okay Sky, I know that’s just your backwards way of telling me I’m flaming hot.”

“Sweet mother of the gods William, I will make a nice late afternoon snack out of you, I swear.”

The little fucker had the audacity to _waggle his fucking eyebrows_ at them, “Oh my~ Sounds pretty kinky. Sky, quit trying to soil my young innocence, you sultry old lizard.”

They promptly slung him over their shoulder like a sack of very noisy potatoes and carried him over to the spring as he shrieked in a mixture of laughter and mild terror. They rather enjoyed jumping into the cold, refreshing water but he was less enthusiastic about the sudden bath they were taking. He stopped complaining when they dried him off and kissed him on his cold, slightly purple lips and took him back to bed with them for some much needed sleep.

While Sky laid on the edge of sleep with an already lightly snoring William in their arms, they started to think that they had to admit, they could’ve gotten used to living a lazy life with William. Eating meals cooked over a fire whenever they were hungry, sleeping in comfortable warmth when they were tired, and fucking him senseless when the two of them got horny. They knew they would have to get out of The Forest some time, they were so ready to be rid of the swath of trees. One could only take so many years of the place. And they wanted to show William all of the world they’d seen in their hundreds of years, they could only imagine the look on his face when he finally saw some of the wonders they had to show him. 

They wanted to show him what it was like to be able to go anywhere in the world, to be able to fly. He still had ties to his family that they knew would never truly fade, and not all of them were good ties. Like the one to his father. The more he told Sky about his father and their relationship the more they wanted to burn him to damn crisp themself to keep him from doing any more damage to William. William already thought of himself as a nuisance, someone that only got in the way of others and made a mess of things when ever he tried to help. All because of his father. All his older brothers got praise and encouragement just because they’d mastered the oh so skilled art of milking a cow and plowing a field. William got kicked out of his home on his nineteenth birthday because he was more interested in the world that lay beyond the confines of his small village than how to work on a farm for the rest of his life. They didn’t know a lot about human families but even they knew that was sure as hell not the right thing for a father to do to his child. He deserved protection and safety and to learn what it meant to be sure of himself, what it meant to be confident in what he does. 

They wanted to make him see how much he was worth, at least to them. Fuck they were getting soft. To think that Sky’s shadow passing over towns and villages alone was enough to make grown men piss themselves in fear back in their day. Now all they could think about was making William feel loved, or at least like he was worth something. They’d turned into a giant sap. But to their surprise they when they looked down at WIlliam’s face to see him smiling in his sleep they found that they were pretty okay with that.

********************************************************************************************************

In the two months after the night Sky and William first had sex, the two of them made it a frequent habit to revisit the feeling of holding each other, making each other reach climaxes so high Sky was sure that it was almost the exact same feeling of flying. Sky didn’t even have any more problems with their sheath, which was a relief because that would’ve been a huge pain to deal with _every single time._ Sometimes Sky was on top, sometimes William was. Either way, the two of them could both agree that fucking was one of the best ways to pass time and keep warm in the winter months while snow storms raged outside the cave. They could also both agree that the easy intimacy, the way they moved together, the feeling of coming home but at the same time having everytime feel like the first was something they wouldn’t give up for the world. William seemed to never have skin free of hickeys, bite marks, and the red lines of the welts and shallow cuts their claws left on him. Every time they started to heal they were quickly replaced by new ones. 

When the two of them weren’t fucking like two rabbits in breeding season, William and Sky started making useful things out of the giant snakes carcass. The meat was far better tasting than expected, especially in soup, and lasted for a little longer than expected. Which was a good thing seeing that the deer herds had started to get a bit leary of any area around the cave and had started to move farther into the woods. Having a nearly month and a half long break from hunting them made the deer start to move back in, making their last half a month of hunting relatively easy. By the end of it William and Sky had a pile of new weapons, supplies, and William made Sky make him some new armor to wear under his clothes from the basilisk hide to replace his chain mail bikini. But who was he kidding, nothing could replace that work of art. It was _enchanted_ for god’s sake. Or at least that’s what William said.

When the time came to leave when the snow melted and the sounds of the first tentative bird songs began in the trees outside the cave, the two of them found they almost didn’t want to leave. Sky would miss the long afternoons spent with their chin rested on the top of William’s head and their arms around his waist, listening to him hum songs from his childhood as he carved a bone or sewed together pouches from the linings of Basilisk organs. And the couple hours every day that William would work out and do sword practice that Sky could watch him with shameless hunger and appreciation because he was _theirs_ to look at. And the nights, mornings, sometimes even entire days they spent in bed with him. Worrying about nothing more than memorizing the swells of his muscles, the salty taste of his skin, and the way his hair looked like bright curls of flame when they were illuminated from the light of the fire. And the nights when they changed into their larger form and curled around William and his bed like a protective mother cat even though they knew that they were safe in the cave, they just wanted to be close to him. 

William said he would miss, quote, “constantly being pampered like a pretty pretty princess”, unquote. The conversation that followed that comment was William asking Sky if they thought he was a pretty pretty princess and then feigning being extremely offended when they told him that he was more like a princess who never learned proper goddamn manners and ran their mouth too much. 

The fire in the middle of the cave needed to be put out before they left, they didn’t have a big enough container for water so Sky just opted for laying on top of the fire and smothering it out with their giant, fire proof belly. After that they dumped a mouthful of spring water onto it for good measure. William was standing a short ways away with a torch and his bag packed full of supplies strapped to his back. They were about ready to shrink down to their human form and walk out of the cave when they heard William gasp. The pans on his backpack clanked together loudly as he trotted over to the smouldering ashes of the bonfire. 

“What are you doing now, boy?” They asked, watching the light of his torch bob over towards the pile of charred wood. 

He didn’t seem to be listening and they heard him mumble to himself, “There’s no way…” He stopped at the ash pile and shifted some around with his boot, “There is no fucking way.” He said a bit louder, excitement lifting his voice. Apparently he found whatever it was he was looking for because he bent down and grabbed something shiny and suspiciously familiar looking from the blackened debris. “ **Oh my god, it survived!** ” He exclaimed loudly. He held up what he had found.

It was the fucking bikini, a little dirty but otherwise unhurt.

 _God **DAMNIT!**_

They let out a roar of anger and despair that echoed through the cave. William was laughing like the smug asshole he was, “Okay you giant drama queen, settle down. I promise I’ll only wear it under my clothes when we start heading into dangerous areas so I wont kill your calamari boner when you decide to check me out.” He was still laughing while he made his half-assed attempt to reassure them. He shoved it in a side pocket to his bag and patted their leg sympathetically as he walked towards the entrance. They glared at him for a second but sighed and followed him. They had to get him something that actually looked good on him to wear as soon as they got to a market of some kind. Hell, maybe they’d even pay a little extra to get it enchanted too so William wouldn’t bitch and moan about it not being the same. A new wing wasn’t even their main goal anymore, they just wanted to get rid of that god awful set of “armor”. 

The two of them made their way outside in relative silence save for the sounds of pans knocking together with every step William took. When they were supposed to have been walking out into the woods and leaving the cave behind, William and Sky found themselves instead standing outside of the opening of the cave and staring into the inky darkness. They stood like that for only a minute but it felt like forever was stretching on in the quiet of the overcast morning. 

William was the first to speak, “I really am gonna miss this place. Felt like home more than anywhere I’ve ever been.” He commented softly like he was afraid being too loud would shatter the moment like glass.

Sky found themself nodding in agreement, “Yeah, it was nice.” Then they fell into silence again for a few more seconds.

When William slotted his fingers into the spaces between theirs they realized that they hadn’t switched back into their larger form yet. He looked up at them with a crooked smile, “We can always find this place again, right? We can spend winters here as a way to sort of wind down from a majority of a year of traveling. It’d be nice, being able to have a calm little place all our own to go to.” He bumped his head against their shoulder affectionately and looked up at them in that adoring way that turned their heart to a big ball of melted butter in their chest, something only he could do to them, “Besides, there are too many good memories here to just leave behind, right?” 

Sky couldn’t help but smile back at him, they leaned down to kiss his head, “Yes, yes there are. It’s a deal then, we’ll make this place our home base of sorts.” William grinned at them and stood on his tip toes to peck them on the lips. They let go of his hand and returned the kiss with one of their own before they walked a little ways away and switched forms. “But to make sure nothing or no _one_ tries to make this their home while we’re away, I’m going to have to block the entrance.” They stated. They found a good sized boulder and lifted it in one giant, scaled hand to place it snug against the entrance of the cave. They used their claws to carve three parallel lines at a diagonal and then three more going down the other way, marking the entrance to the cave with an ‘X’ etched permanently into the rock. They stood back to admire their work for a second before they turned back to William who was doing the same thing they were. 

After shaking their head a little Sky leaned their neck down to bump him in the side with their nose lightly, “Let’s get going William, we can’t waste daylight.” They said as softly as their deep rumble of a voice would allow them to. They also still had a little of that rasp from when the Basilisk had tried to choke them to death, they figured that it must have caused some kind of damage to their vocal chords. They didn’t really mind, William said it gave them “a sultry bedroom voice”. They had no idea what that was supposed to mean but they guessed it was positive based on the way he tended to shudder when they dirty talked to him with that rasp in their voice more pronounced when they were in the heat of things. 

William shoved at their snout playfully, “Alright alright, I’m coming.” He adjusted the straps on his shoulders a little and started walking with Sky walking alongside him. The two of them started walking in silence until they fell into their usual pattern of banter, it sounded a bit odd without their own voices bouncing back at them from the cave walls but they would get used to it. Even if William was constantly making dirty jokes, or just bad puns, the entire time they were talking. But they found that they were starting to love that about him too. They also loved how he would absentmindedly reach over to their leg and feel the smoothness of the scales there. How he would kick at the slowly melting piles of slush and snow as he passed by them and laugh like a child. How he was even able to be childlike when he was a grown man, like time hadn’t had any affect on his passion and curiosity about the world. 

They loved so many things about him it scared them and made their chest feel tight to the point of being painful. But they decided that it was a good kind of pain. They didn’t even know that there was a such thing as good pain before they met William but now they didn’t think they could live without that little achy reminder that, yes, they were awake and feeling and _living_. William was a pain in the ass but he was a good pain too, just like the one he put in their chest without even knowing what he was doing. Like a thorn worming it’s way deeper into the muscle of their heart and finding home there.

William was their good pain. The pain that kept them moving forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and sorry to my mother for her only daughter writing dragon musk scented fILTH in her spare time. [Here](http://thecatinthepurplepants.tumblr.com/) is my tumblr for those who want to stay up to date on my writing or to see that one time I ranted about there not being any cheddar cheese in my house at 2 am.


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